Nursing Home : Nursing Homes

As a nurse we want to ensure that our patients receive a high quality of care. Patients should feel safe and satisfied while hospitalized. Many hospitals are continually looking for answers and implementation to significantly reduce the inpatient fall incidents. According to Bechdel et al (2014), the top priority of health care organizations nationwide is to reduce and eliminate falls within the clinical care settings. One of the serious problems in acute care hospital is the patient’s fall. The unfamiliar environment, acute and co-morbid illnesses, prolonged bedrest, polypharmacy, and the placement of tubes and catheters are common challenges that place patients at risk of falling. Most of the falls that I have encountered while working involves

Patient falls in hospitals are a critical problem and are used as a standard metric of nursing care quality. According to the Joint Commission, thousands of patients fall in hospitals each year. Approximately 30-50% of falls result in injuries and prolonged hospital stays. Any patient in a hospital is at risk for falling and certain measures should be in place to prevent this. Preventing falls and injuries are not only important for the patient, but also for their families, the hospital, health care team, and insurance companies. It is estimated the average cost of a hospital admission due to a fall is $20,000 and by 2030, an estimated $54 billion will be spent on health care costs due to falls. The purpose of this paper is to explore the risk factors of falls in hospitals and interventions used to combat this problem.

Most hospitalized patients of 65 years and above have been established to be more vulnerable to falling within their homes or in a facility. These falls have been attributed to various causative agents that need to be assessed and managed in an attempt to completely avert falls (Wilbert, 2010). Prevention of falls should be mandatory since they cause more danger to patients, including breakage of the main bones and even death. As a result, the patient may develop a more serious condition such as decrease functional immobility in addition to that which caused hospitalization. Most of these falls have been found to be caused by therapeutic impacts and ignored diagnostic information (Naqvi, Lee & Fields, 2009). For instance, a great number of elderly people who are hospitalized are diagnosed with dementia at the time of admission; hence, such information needs to be taken into consideration during the care of such a patient. Dementia is likely to cause disorientation and confusion which may result in recurrent falls. Therefore, falls may be described as the abrupt and unintended loss of uprightness that leads to body displacement towards the ground falls (Wilbert, 2010). The purpose of this paper is to develop a falls prevention, management program that will reduce the number of falls occurring within an organization.

Falls among any individual can cause significant trauma, often leading to an increase in mortality. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2012), one in every three adults over the age of 65 falls each year. Long-term care facilities account for many of these falls, with an average of 1.5 falls occurring per nursing home bed annually (Vu, Weintraub, & Rubenstein, 2004). In 2001, the American Geriatric Society, British Geriatric Society, and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Panel on Falls Prevention published specific guidelines to prevent falls in long-term

Nurses help to ensure patient safety, which includes preventing falls and fall-related injuries (Quigley, Neily, Watson, Wright, & Strobel, 2017). The general population is at risk for falls and fall-related injuries, more specifically the elderly, 65 and over (Quigley, Neily, Watson, Wright, & Strobel, 2017). Patient falls are one of the top events for hospitals and long-term care facilities due to loss of physical function or cognition (Quigley, Neily, Watson, Wright, & Strobel, 2017). Fall-related injuries are a serious health issue for the elderly population (Quigley, Neily, Watson, Wright, & Strobel, 2017). Nurses make a major contribution to patient safety by assessing fall risk and designing patient-specific fall prevention

Falls are a common and complex geriatric syndrome that cause considerable mortality, morbidity, reduced functioning, and premature nursing home admissions. Falls have multiple precipitating causes and predisposing risk factors, which make their diagnosis, treatment, and prevention a difficult clinical challenge. Identifying effective interventions to prevent falls and fall-related injuries among older adults is a major area of research and policy development in geriatrics. Several published clinical guidelines review the evidence for fall prevention strategies and provide recommendations for assessment and intervention (Rubenstein & Josephson, 2006).

Each year, one out of three elderly people fall (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015). The CDC (2015) also reports that once an individual has fallen, the chance that they will fall again doubles. Falls also contribute to an increase in direct medical costs. The CDC (2015) states, “Direct medical costs for fall injuries are thirty-four billion dollars annually. Hospital costs account for two-thirds of the total.” The amount of elderly people who fall each year along with the economic costs that result from falls indicates that preventing patient falls remains an important goal for healthcare workers including nurses. Nurses can use the nursing process—assessment, diagnosis, planning, intervention, and evaluation—to prevent patient falls and meet the fall prevention standards set by various regulating bodies.

In DC, community based fall prevention programs have been rising to address falls but fall related incident, injuries and the cost has continuously been rising among elderly people (Costello & Edelstein, 2008). In the study conducted by Berland et al. (2012), showed that in home health, not viewing patient safety as primary prevention, lack of investigation causing fall and frailty of elderly adult have been some factors contributing to falls in home health. Falls negatively impacts an individual living in their home by causing them physical, emotional problem, giving rise to additional cost by losing workdays and income.

The purpose of this research paper was to examine the latest research and evidence-based practices related to inpatient falls. Falls among the elderly within a hospital setting has increased within the last decade. Inpatient falls have become the second leading cause of death, causing longer hospital stays and indirect costs for the hospital. The research reviewed multiple studies, which discussed the causes of inpatient falls. A few causes included nurses and staff not knowledgeable of current hospital practices, lack of individualized plan of care, and lack of training related to falls. The findings assisted the writer to revise the current fall policy and procedure for Arrowhead Regional Medical Center (ARMC). A fall reduction program

According to the reports published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Injury Centre (2007), falls are the third most common cause of unintentional injury death across all age groups and the first leading cause among people 65 years and older. A hospital can be a dangerous and erratic place for inpatients because of its unfamiliar

Falls are a major cause of injury and death in the frail older population with Alzheimer’s disease. Residents in the long-term care settings experience falls for many reasons and are likely to endure injuries more than those in other settings. Preventing falls in this setting posed significant challenge, many have cognitive problems, aged related changes, chronic medical conditions, medication effects, and physical limitations requiring dedicated interdisciplinary efforts (Vance, 2011).

Broken bones, hip fractures, head injuries, and even death are a serious concern among the elderly in the long-term care setting resulting from falls. Fall prevention in a long-term care facility with dementia residents presents an ongoing challenge to the entire interdisciplinary care team due to their cognitive impairment. Even with significant protocols in place, falls are still to common. There must be other interventions such as distraction techniques that can help reduce the incidence of falls among this population.

Falls are considered a leading cause of mortality and injury among older adults and majority of the falls occurs while hospitalized. One would think being in the hospital would be one of the safest places for older adults as far as fall prevention is concern due to the fact that hospitals provide staffing around the clock for patients but more and more falls have been occurring in the hospital especially in the older adult population. Fall is an unintended descent to the ground. It raises public and family care liability; it also decreases patient’s functioning because it causes pain and suffering, and increases medical costs (Saverino et al, 2015). The Center for Disease Control

Patient safety is one of the nation's most imperative health care issues. A 1999 article by the Institute of Medicine estimates that 44,000 to 98,000 people die in U.S. hospitals each year as the result of lack of in patient safety regulations. Inhibiting falls among patients and residents in acute and long term care healthcare settings requires a multifaceted method, and the recognition, evaluation and prevention of patient or resident falls are significant challenges for all who seek to provide a safe environment in any healthcare setting. Yearly, about 30% of the persons of 65 years and older falls at least once and 15% fall at least twice. Patient falls are some of the most common occurrences reported in hospitals and are a leading

A fall is a lethal event that results from an amalgamation of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors which predispose an elderly person to the incident (Naqvi et al 2009). The frequency of hospital admission due to falls for older people in Australia, Canada, UK and Northern Ireland range from 1.6 to 3.0 per 10 000 population (WHO 2012). The prevalence of senior citizen’s falls in acute care settings varies widely and the danger of falling rises with escalating age or frailty. Falls of hospitalized older adults are one of the major patient safety issues in terms of morbidity, mortality, and decreased socialization