Alternating Pressure Overlay Systems

Although preventable, pressure injuries are an overwhelming problem in the healthcare system and can lead to poor quality of life, increased length of hospitalization, and unsatisfactory patient outcomes. Many cardiac surgeries take anywhere from six to twelve hours, and patients are completely immobilized for the entire length of time. Alternating pressure overlays placed on the operating room table provide tissue offloading with inflating and deflating nodes, leading to micro-movements on high pressure bony prominences. The intervention PICO question to be answered in this paper is: In intraoperative patients (P), how does the use of an alternating pressure surface (I) compared to not utilizing an alternating pressure surface (C) affect the number of operating room pressure injuries (O)