A Practical Method for Rapid Measurement of Skin Condition

Maintaining skin integrity is important because of the skin's role in protecting the infant and providing innate immunity. Achievement of this goal requires constant vigilance and awareness of factors that can negatively impact the skin. The task can be particularly challenging for patients in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Key to optimizing skin condition is methods to quantify the extend of skin compromise. Implementation of such methods allows caregivers to monitor effectiveness of treatments and practices to prevent skin damage. This paper briefly reviews skin breakdown in hospitalized patients and describes a validated, visually based method for rapid measurement of skin condition. Application of the method in the NICU setting is discussed.