EUROPEAN PRESSURE ULCER ADVISORY PANEL

There are two things I want to share with you in this message. EPUAP discovered America in June and the forthcoming Pisa conference will be a success – as usual.

Our American counterpart (The National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel) invited Michael Clark and myself to participate in a meeting in New York University Medical School in late June 2000. This meeting was organised to exchange opinions and insights about pressure ulcers from North America, Europe, The Middle East, Japan and Korea. The American pressure ulcer guidelines are to be reviewed by the NPUAP in the coming year and so an exchange of opinions was most useful, especially about how we develop our programmes and guidelines.

During the meeting, we presented lectures about debridement and dressings (Michael) and about mattress overlays and risk assessment tools (myself). The presence of Barbara Braden made the discussions about the use of risk assessment tools exciting and serious as well. Our participation in this meeting certainly marks the initiation of long lasting cooperation between the EPUAP, the NPUAP and the other pressure ulcer organisations world-wide. Officials of the NPUAP will visit our conference in Pisa next month and it is quite possible that a similar meeting to that organised in the United States will be repeated perhaps on a yearly basis.

The next conference in Pisa is only six weeks away. The programme is dedicated to discussion of the technology around pressure ulcers with various clinical and scientific themes. One key event in Pisa will be the reports provided by four working groups created last year in Amsterdam. These groups will report their deliberations upon the laboratory and clinical evaluation of support surfaces, the effects of pressure upon skin and soft tissue and finally, and perhaps of greatest import, the EPUAP pressure ulcer prevalence project.

For next year’s conference (2001), conference themes are already coming up and in particular risk assessment. Also a potential highlight for 2001 will be presentations from the members of the European Pressure Ulcer Research Group(EPURG), a new group of rather young researchers drawn from members of EPUAP.

See you in Pisa, the city where pressure and friction not only caused a leaning tower but also a great university and the interest of the whole world.

Jeen Haalboom
President