National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP) came out last month with a statement in support of a specific method to measure pressure ulcer (PrU) incidence. The reasoning for this change was explained by the NPUAP statement: "Pressure ulcer incidence density is a computation based on the number of inpatients who develop a new pressure ulcer(s) divided by 1000 patient days. Using the larger denominator of patient days allows fair comparisons between institutions of all sizes. Incidence is a commonly reported measure; however it is computed by counting the number of patients with newly acquired pressure ulcers and dividing that number by the number of patients examined for pressure ulcers over a given period of time. Smaller facilities can appear to have a higher percentage of patients with ulcers because there are fewer patients in the denominator."
Source: NPUAP Press Release 11 Mar 2014