The process of developing best practice guidelines for nurses in Ontario: risk assessment and prevention of pressure ulcers.

Linking practice to current evidence-based wound care guidelines is a challenge for healthcare professionals, especially because of the quantity of wound care guidelines available. In 1999, the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, Canada, with funding from the Province of Ontario's Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, established a process for the development and implementation of 17 best practice guidelines to support nurses using evidence-based practice. Four of the 17 guidelines pertain to wound care. The consensus development, pilot testing, and evaluation process of one of the guidelines, Risk Assessment and Prevention of Pressure Ulcers in Adults, is described. Following a comprehensive and systematic search for existing guidelines, a formal quality appraisal of five selected guidelines, decisions for adoption and/or adaptation of best practice recommendations, and stakeholder feedback on the draft guidelines, a pilot implementation testing of the guidelines was conducted. In early 2002, the nursing best practice guideline was disseminated through conferences, publications, and the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario website www.rnao.org.