The manifestation of a hospital-acquired pressure injury (HAPI) has a marked effect on the health of critically ill adult patients. Nearly 1 in 4 critically ill adults will have a HAPI develop, and HAPIs lengthen hospital stays and substantially increase morbidity. Given critically ill adults’ susceptibility to HAPIs, it is recommended that they undergo routine skin assessments to minimize the damaging effects of a HAPI. The existing strategies for screening for HAPIs among critically ill adults, however, have high sensitivity and low specificity—resulting in most critically ill patients being classified as at high risk for a HAPI.
Existing screening strategies for HAPIs often lead to a significant proportion of critically ill adults being misclassified as at risk. As a result of this misclassification, costly prevention measures are unnecessarily implemented for some critically ill adults, which can limit the resources available for those critically ill adults who are correctly classified and...