A world-class city filled with art and culture and an incredible campus that offers cutting edge resources–that’s what students receive at Penn Nursing. And that’s just the start. Penn Nursing and the wider university offer something for everyone, as well as a lifelong community.

Penn Nursing is globally known for educating dynamic nurses—because our School values evidence-based science and health equity. That’s where our expertise lies, whether in research, practice, community health, or beyond. Everything we do upholds a through-line of innovation, encouraging our exceptional students, alumni, and faculty share their knowledge and skills to reshape health care.

Penn Nursing students are bold and unafraid, ready to embrace any challenge that comes their way. Whether you are exploring a career in nursing or interested in advancing your nursing career, a Penn Nursing education will help you meet your goals and become an innovative leader, prepared to change the face of health and wellness.

Penn Nursing is the #1-ranked nursing school in the world. Its highly-ranked programs help develop highly-skilled leaders in health care who are prepared to work alongside communities to tackle issues of health equity and social justice to improve health and wellness for everyone.

Penn Nursing’s rigorous academic curricula are taught by world renowned experts, ensuring that students at every level receive an exceptional Ivy League education. From augmented reality classrooms and clinical simulations to coursework that includes experiential global travel to clinical placements in top notch facilities, a Penn Nursing education prepares our graduates to lead.

Risk Assessment Tool Can Now Better Predict Pressure Injuries in Children

Pressure-related skin injuries, a nurse-sensitive quality indicator in hospitals, are associated with increased morbidity and higher costs of care. There’s been much attention focused on hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPI) in the adult population. However, while preventable, immobility-related and medical device-related pressure injuries (MDPI) also occur in hospitalized infants and children.

February 05, 2018
Young Girl Sleeping In Intensive Care Unit
Young Girl Sleeping In Intensive Care Unit

Preventing pressure injury in infants and children requires that clinicians accurately identify at-risk patients and apply reliable prevention strategies for those patients. Often, the Braden Q Scale is used to help identify pediatric patients at risk for developing these pressure-related skin injuries. Until recently, initial predictive validity testing of the Braden Q Scale only included immobility-related pressure injuries in critically ill pediatric patients aged two weeks to eight years.

In a study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing), a new, simplified Braden QD Scale now describes combined immobility-related and MDPI risk in a broader, more diverse sample of pediatric patients typically cared for in acute care environments. The multicenter, prospective cohort study was published in the January issue of The Journal of Pediatrics.

“The Braden QD Scale provides acute care pediatric clinicians with one instrument to predict both immobility- and device-related pressure injuries across diverse age and clinical populations,” says lead-author Martha A. Q. Curley, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Ruth M. Colket Endowed Chair in Pediatric Nursing at Penn Nursing and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “This instrument may be helpful in preventing iatrogenic injury, in facilitating quality monitoring of care, and in helping to guide resource allocation in the prevention of HAPI in hospitalized infants and children.”

Co-authors of the study include: Natalie R. Hasbani, MPH; Sandy M. Quigley, RN, MSN; Lindyce A. Kulik, RN, MS; Catherine N. Caillouette, RN, MS; and Margaret A. McCabe, RN, PhD, all of Boston Children’s Hospital; Judith J. Stellar, RN, MSN, of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; Tracy A. Pasek, RN, DNP, of the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh; Stacey S. Shelley, RN, MSN, of the Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City; Tracy B. Chamblee, RN, PhD, of the Children’s Medical Center, Dallas;  Mary Anne Dilloway, RN, BS, of Rady Children’s Hospital, San Diego; and David Wypij, PhD, of Harvard Medical School.

More Stories