Kudos to Valerie Sabol and her entire team for the submission of her American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) grant application entitled "Determining repositioning patterns of obese nursing home residents." This proposal requests funding for a one-year period with a start date of July 1, 2018.

Caring for elderly nursing home (NH) residents is a complex endeavor given the diversity of age-related concerns and chronic health conditions. Further complicating NH care, is the growing population of obese residents who require additional assistance and often place a burden on equipment and resources. Obese residents are often confined to their beds and require additional staff to reposition/move them so that pressure ulcers/injuries (PrU) are not developed; one of every nine NH residents experiences a PrU during their stay. Nurse Practitioners (NPs) are specifically trained to manage chronic illness problems in older adults. APRN-led strategies to improve resident mobility, staff’s ability to reposition obese NH residents, and oversight of reduction in NH resident’s PrU development will be possible with increased awareness of factors influencing obese versus non-obese repositioning. This proposal, aligned with AANP’s research agenda, seeks to position NPs to enhance their contributions to NP-led practice models of patient-centered care in NHs and to clinical and economic outcomes (i.e., PrU prevention). This pilot study is a prospective analysis of data from an active NIH-funded (R01 NR016001-01A1) clinical trial (NCT02996331).