Factors Affecting the Time to Occurrence of Hospital-Acquired Pressure Ulcers Using EHR Data

This study examined factors affecting the time to occurrence of hospital-acquired pressure ulcers using electronic health records (EHR) data in a critical care setting. The subjects were 202 patients who were admitted to a tertiary hospital between January 2015 and May 2016 and developed pressure ulcers. In total, 61 risk factors for pressure ulcers were extracted from nine different report forms and analyzed using univariate and multiple linear regression analyses. The univariate analysis identified 33 significant factors, and 11 factors remained significant in the multiple regression analysis. Patients with decreased consciousness and those on ventilators tended to develop pressure ulcers during the early stage of hospitalization. Patients taking sedative-hypnotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, steroids, and anticoagulants, those in renal failure, and those who consulted a nutritionist, or had a gastrointestinal or tracheostomy tube or diarrhea tended to develop pressure ulcers at a later stage of hospitalization.