Falls Incidence: A Case Study

Contributing elements of patient falls include patients’ balance, gait, impaired cognition, and a history of falling (Tzeng & Yin, 2015). Studies have proven there is a correlation between “nursing staff and adverse patient

Patient falls is one of the commonest events within the healthcare facilities that affect the safety of the patients. Preventing falls among patients requires various methods. Recognition, evaluation, and preventing of patient falls are great challenges for healthcare workers in providing a safe environment in any healthcare setting. Hospitals have come together to understand the contributing factors of falls, and to decrease their occurrence and resulting injuries or death. Risk of falls among patients is considered as a safety indicator in healthcare institutions due to this. Falls and related injuries have consistently been associated with the quality of nursing care and are included as a nursing-quality indicator

Employers are continuing to face rising health benefit costs and are constantly looking for alternatives to control these escalating costs. Health benefit premiums continue to increase at a double digit pace for employers and employees (Poor, Ross & Tollen, 2004). This escalation is putting environmental pressures on all impacted stakeholders, including insurance and health care providers. Companies and insurance providers are squeezing this industry to get a handle on cost while still providing an appropriate level of care. This cycle puts the patient front and center as the ultimate stakeholder who incurs changes in health benefits.

We need to measure the incidents then only we can improve it.so we need to counted and tracked falls rates for quality improvement program. Through tracking programs we know whether the care is improving, staying the same, or it worsening. Our unit is continuously assess our fall rates and fall prevention practice. Fall and fall-related injury rates can measure how well you are following in making patients safer related to falls. Compared to previous year we improved to prevent fall related

The most common adverse event that jeopardize patient safety is patient falls, or for documentation purpose, patient found on the floor. The most common preventable adverse event that jeopardize the nurse accountability is patient falls. In my four years of nursing I have had to complete one patient fall incident report, but I have assisted in the documentation of at least four, which was five to many patients fall. Morse fall scale is the fall risk assessment commonly used in the hospital setting. My plan is to shine the light on fall prevention intervention by taking the Morse fall scale 2-steps farther. What nurses may not know is, inpatient falls are the liability of the hospital and not reimbursed by Center for Medical and Medicaid Service (Given, Given & Spoelstra, 2012).

Falls in acute care settings frequently occur regardless of the prevention measures used to eliminate the risk of falling and sometimes lead to fractures, hematomas, head injuries, and spinal cord. It can also lead to a decrease in confidence, independence, and mobility in elderly. However, to prevent a fall, risk factors must be accurately assessed in a hospital setting, in which the patient’s risk assessment information can translate into an action plan if this protocol is applied. Fall has a tremendous impact on the patient, but implementing an accurate assessment will help reduce the risk of falling and the hospital cost. These are just some potential results that could happen, and these results would be generalizable to the study population

The NICE (2004) recommendations also call for care providers to provide multi-factorial interventions for patients who have suffered injurious falls. The care provider should also provide information to caregivers and patients on the most effective interventions such as assessment of mobility, balance, gait, and muscle weakness. Under NICE recommendations, the healthcare setting should have programs in place to ensure victims of falls receive care aimed at restoring his/her independence and physical ability. For example, educate them on how to get assistance in case of falling A set of safety and healthcare standards set out in the Health and Social Care Act also obligate care providers to protect their patients from the risk of falling, although they do not make reference to minimization of falls (NHS East Midlands, 2010).

To prevent falls, patients should be taught simple interventions that decrease their risk of falls. This applies to their stay in the hospital, as well as when they go home. While planning what the patient should be taught, the nurse should consider the risk factors and circumstances surrounding the patient’s needs (Quigley 2015). Medications are one of the risk factors to consider. The elderly, in particular, are more sensitive to a drug’s effects (Savita et al 2015). Many medications cause dizziness or orthostatic hypotension, while others like antidepressants have a sedating effect. (Savita el al 2015). Patients should be instructed to move slowly when going from a sitting to a standing position. It is a good idea to teach them to stand for at least one minute before beginning to walk. They also need to understand which medicines have a sedating effect, so they could plan their activities around their medicine regimen.

Falls in the elderly is an issue that needs to be more closely examined to prevent injury and premature death (Keys & Tress 2004, pp. 149-150). The issue that this paper will be addressing is ‘Does malnutrition play a role in causing falls and increasing the risk of falls for older adults? This paper will focus on the background of the issue, why it is important to clinical governance and also relevant literature based on the issue. This will be done by appraising 5 articles using the Critical Appraisal Skills program (CASP) cohort study tool, the articles which are most rigorous will be noted. The results of the articles will be discussed and then be synthesized together and reported on. To end the paper a summary table will be attached which

These facts will help people to enlighten about slip and fall injury cases. Most people are not aware that if a person is injured as a result of unsafe conditions on someone else’s property, the landowner or business proprietor may be held legally responsible. The victim should seek help from a slip and fall injury lawyer to evaluate the case to calculate also the demand for damages.

The Ward Manager ensured that the staff received appropriate training on falls prevention, the use of the risk assessment tools and care plans for the patients. The role of the Ward Sister is to make sure all accidents, incidents and near misses are reported and documented and providing feedback to the staff on themes from slips and trips and falls investigations is the sister’s responsibility, (Local Trust Policy). Reporting of incidences is also important as it follows the Reporting of Injuries, Disease and Dangerous Occurrence regulations 2013 (Health and Safety Executive, 2016) (HSE). In workplaces, the Health and Safety Work act 1974 underpins some of the guidelines of the Adult Inpatient Falls Management incorporating the use of safe

Among the fallers, 27.3% experienced two or more falls and the difference between bilateral and unilateral amputees was not mentioned. The independent risk factors of multiple falling incidents were similar to those of a single fall, including being >70 years of age (OR = 2.75), having LOS of >4 weeks (OR = 5.81), taking one PRN medication (OR = 3.55), having congestive heart failure (OR = 2.27), and cognitive impairment (OR = 2.45) . Patients >70 years of age had almost triple the risk of experiencing multiple falls, and the risk was more than tripled among patients who were taking a single PRN medication. Also, the risk of multiple falls in patients suffering from congestive heart failure or cognitive impairment was more than doubled. It

Older people who are classified as frail usually have a high risk of having a fall. The community nurse should therefore screen all frail older patients for risk of falling. The nurse will ask the client and their carer whether they had a fall in the past year. If the client has fallen in the past year the nurse will ask about the frequency of the falls and their characteristics. The nurse should then ask the client if they have a fear of falling. The client should also be asked if they think they have any problems with walking or with their balance. If the client has answered yes to any of these questions then they may be at risk of falling. This information allows the community general nurse to plan and prioritise care for the client. If

The outcomes of interest will be the specific fall incidences for both the treatment (participants subjected to regular exercise programs) and control groups (participants not subjected to the regular exercise programs. It is expected that the differences noted for fall incidence will be credited to the exercise program. The source of information on fall incidence will be from weekly interviews with the participants where they are asked whether they has experienced any falls in the course of that week. The collected data would then be evaluated using ratio analysis that quantifies the outcome differences for the treatment and control groups in terms of magnitude and direction. In addition, confidence interval will be presented as a measure

Thank you, Stacy, for your post! Your post was well written. I agree with you, some patients on admission can walk and do not present a risk for falls at all and we nurses do not see the importance of teaching these patients about fall risks. What you fail to mention in your post is that while in the hospital these patients that never have a fall in their lives are taking medications that can cause them to be dizzy, confused and therefore make them a high risk for falls. I work on a psychiatric floor, and most of my patients are young and healthy, but I realized after working on my floor for four years that some patients that have no previous history of falling, especially the older adults, end up falling. Ativan, one of the medications that