D128. The Impact of COVID-19 on Rates of Pressure Injuries among Hospitalized Patients Across The United States

PURPOSE: Hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) are never-events causing significant morbidity. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted all aspects of hospital care, yet its effects on the rates of HAPIs is unknown. We aimed to characterize the pandemic’s impact on HAPI rates and composition of HAPI stages among hospitalized patients across the U.S. METHODS: Encounter-level data from adult patients hospitalized from January 2018-December 2020 were evaluated for development of HAPIs using the Clinformatics DataMart database. Bivariate analysis comparing baseline characteristics of hospitalized and pressure injury patients before and after April 2020 were calculated, and an interrupted time series analysis was performed to determine the pandemic’s impact on the monthly rate of HAPIs and changes in composition of HAPI stages. RESULTS: In total, 2,230,199 acute inpatient episodes, representing 1,750,494 patients, were included in the analysis. Patient baseline characteristics did not change over the observation period. HAPI rates were consistent across the time period analyzed with no significant differences in rates following the onset of the pandemic (p=0.303). Composition of HAPI stages remained consistent across the pandemic (unspecified, stages I-IV, p=0.62, 0.80, 0.22, 0.23, and 0.52, respectively) with a significant decrease only observed in unstageable/deep tissue injuries (-0.088%, p=0.0134). CONCLUSION: While hospital resources were overall strained at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we did not find differences in HAPI rates. The composition of HAPI stages did not change except for unstageable injury. Our findings suggest HAPI prevention methods were sufficient in the largest stressor to the American healthcare system.