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  4. Vol 7, Issue 3, 2026

Risk Prediction Models for Prevention of Complications in Medical and Surgical Nursing: A Narrative Review of Pressure Injury, Venous Thromboembolism, Falls and Postoperative Delirium

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DOI: 10.23977/medsc.2026.070311 | Downloads: 3 | Views: 92

Author(s)

Yumei Liu 1

Affiliation(s)

1 Ningqiang County Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hanzhong, Shaanxi, 724400, China

Corresponding Author

Yumei Liu

ABSTRACT

Hospital-acquired complications remain major threats to patient safety and quality of nursing care. Pressure injury, venous thromboembolism, inpatient falls, and postoperative delirium are common among medical and surgical patients, particularly older adults, critically ill patients, postoperative patients, immobile patients, and those with multimorbidity. Traditional nursing risk assessment relies largely on clinical judgment and standardized scales, which are useful but may be insufficient for dynamic and individualized risk prediction. Recent studies have increasingly explored electronic health record-based models, artificial intelligence, machine learning, clinical decision support systems, and specialty-specific prediction tools to identify high-risk patients earlier and guide targeted nursing interventions. This review summarizes current progress in nursing-relevant risk prediction models for common medical and surgical complications, discusses their clinical application in pressure injury, venous thromboembolism, falls, and delirium prevention, and highlights methodological and implementation challenges. It further emphasizes that prediction models should not be treated as isolated statistical tools, but as part of a practical nursing safety system that connects risk identification with bedside decision-making, patient education, intervention delivery, outcome monitoring, and continuous quality improvement. Future nursing research should move from model development alone toward closed-loop systems that integrate prediction, alerting, stratified intervention, outcome evaluation, and workflow optimization. 

KEYWORDS

Risk prediction; nursing safety; pressure injury; venous thromboembolism; inpatient falls; postoperative deliriumt

CITE THIS PAPER

Yumei Liu. Risk Prediction Models for Prevention of Complications in Medical and Surgical Nursing: A Narrative Review of Pressure Injury, Venous Thromboembolism, Falls and Postoperative Delirium. MEDS Clinical Medicine (2026). Vol. 7, No. 3, 75-86. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/medsc.2026.070311.

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