Reducing Risk Of Patient Harm From Falls

A patient who is admitted to a facility may be alert, oriented, and independent in ambulation. Add on intravenous (IV) tubing attached to a pole, a telemetry monitor, a foley catheter, and new medications for the patient. This patient now has fall risk factors. The purpose of this paper is to describe and evaluate change in preventing falls in the hospital setting.

During hospitalizations, falls are amongst the highest preventable consistent adverse events. Preventing such undesirable events, enhances patient overall experience, as well as increased trust in the health care professional team (Fragata, 2011). The importance of fall prevention lies with the many serious unfavorable health outcomes it can pose on the patient. Falls have the potential increase length of hospital stay, limit mobility, independence, but can ultimately lead to health deterioration, including death. Worldwide, falls are the second leading cause of accidental death. In addition to the life-threatening health and safety risks falls have to the patient, it also as a financial impact,

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.

Problem: Patient falls have long been a common and serious problem in hospitals across the nation, causing

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.

Many of these inpatient falls can be prevented when following the proper fall prevention measures. Not only does patient safety make preventing falls a priority but the financial impact these falls have on an institution make it a priority as well.

Capan, K., & Lynch, B. (2007). Reports from the field: patient safety. a hospital fall assessment and intervention project. Journal of Clinical Outcomes Management: JCOM, 14(3), 155-160.

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

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

The following research question was addressed: What is the effect of falls in the older adults while hospitalized? CINAHL Complete and Google scholar databases were used to search for relevant quantitative research articles. CINAHL Complete was searched using words like “falls in older adults while inpatient”, “impact of falls in older adults while hospitalized”, falls in older adults”, “and falls in the hospital amongst older adults“, ” fall impact in older adults while hospitalized”. Google scholar databases was searched using keywords such as “impact of falls in hospitalized older adults”, “Fall in the older adults during hospitalization”, “effects of fall on older adults while hospitalized”. Quantitative research article published in English, where any author is a nurse, and adult subjects were analyzed; dates of publications for all articles were limited to the years between 2011–2016. The University of Texas at Arlington’s library site titled finding quantitative and qualitative research was used to evaluate the qualities of the research article to ensure quantitative articles were utilized. Research articles that were utilized were those that involve interventions focused on effects of falls in the older adults population while hospitalized. Multifactorial fall prevention programs, environmental, educational

Falls are highly common amongst the elderly, particularly those who lack mobility, are in hospital, or are living in a nursing home. When an elderly person falls, their activities of daily living may be impacted due to injuries sustained from the fall. It is essential that precautions are put in place to prevent falls in all settings. This essay will discuss the statistics surrounding falls, prevention strategies, and the impacts of a fall on a patient’s ability to complete activities of daily living.

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 can make wide spread consequences on the health service or can be affected seriously by the increased health care utilization. Among the fallers approximately 30% of falls result in physical injury leading to extensive hospitalization with significant hospital expenses (Tzeng & Yin 2010). Preventive care phases can support health services to regulate the spare expenditure to a greater extend. A fall in hospital consequently affects the nursing staff, which lead to impaired job satisfaction, additional work load and startling time consume. As the front line of care, nurses can prevent falls and reduce fall injury rates in acute care unit with available resources (Dykes et al. 2013). This literature review aims to assess the efficiency of planned interventions to reduce the incidence of falls in acute medical units. The discussions of the main findings of the review as well as the recommendations for further research are revealed to conclude this study.

If patient safety is the most important issue in Health Care facilities then how come hospital inpatient falls continue to be the most reported of all accidental falls (Tzeng & Yin, 2009)? Throughout the years, hospitals continue to make changes to decrease the risk of accidents and increase the quality of patient safety. With research studies and improvements made, patient falls still hold the largest portion of reported incidents in hospitals (Tzeng, & Yin, 2008). According to Tzeng & Yin (2008), “fall prevention programs apparently do not effectively reduce inpatient fall rates because of human factors and ergonomics in a hospital environment (p.179, para. 2). The two studies reviewed in this paper were performed with the hopes of