Research Assignment Guidelines

This work has significance because staff and patient education can help prevent falls. Specific interventions decrease falls. Nurses have a responsibility to their patients and their facility to be competent and confident in their abilities to do all that they can to prevent falls. Facilities have the responsibility to provide the tools and the training that is required to carry out fall prevention

All healthcare professionals will receive an adequate training about fall prevention. The topics that will be covered are the correct usage of falls risk assessment tool and care plan, universal fall precautions, the causes and effects of falls, and so forth. One on one education will be provided to the patients by the assigned nurse.

The following are directions to write the narrative description of your field project. It should be written in APA (6th edition) format, appropriately noting in-text citations, references, etc. You may attach as appendices any charts, tables, or other materials (labeled with the source identified per APA format). The document should be a minimum of 7 pages and no more than 10 pages, not including the cover sheet, reference page(s), and appendices. Use the headings in the outline below as the headings

Prior to the start of the project, a pre-data of falls frequency will be obtained from the Quality Assurance Committee team. These data will be compared and analyzed for comparison to post implementation of the weekly fall risk assessment data, interdisciplinary post-fall assessment on individuals with falls in last 14 days, and the weekly falls prevention training for all shifts. A descriptive statistic will be used to analyze the knowledge, attitude, and thoughts of NPs and

A summary of your project. Identify your topic and describe what you will be looking at in terms of the topic. Include some key terms and additional questions that will guide your research.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has identified eight adverse conditions, and inpatient injurious falls continues to be the most common adverse condition (as cited in Tzeng, Hu & Yin, 2016). The inpatient falls in the “US hospitals range from 3.3 to 11.5 falls per 1,000 patient days” (as cited in Bouldin et al, 2013, p.13). Roughly 25% of patients are injured when they fall (Bouldin et al, 2013). Since 2005, the USA’s National Patient Safety Goal listed fall prevention as a goal (Bennett, Ockerby, Stinson, Willcocks, & Chalmers, 2014). Since 2008, hospitals no longer receive payments from CMS for health care cost connected to inpatient falls (Bouldin et al, 2013). CMS views inpatient injurious falls as injuries that should never occur (Bouldin et al., 2013). There is no doubt that quality improvement must continue to address inpatient injurious falls. Preventing falls and implementing interventions to lower the rates of falls is a major concern for hospitals and must be included in any quality improvement measure.

The 2015 Hill Lancet study was based on concerns about the increased costs and length of stay associated with falls during hospital stays. Specifically, the study investigated the effectiveness of individualized falls-prevention education for patients at the ward level of a hospital, backed up by training and feedback for staff. The following is a critique of this study using the Riegelman MAARIE framework.

“For example, these nurses developed a standardized manner with consistency and coherence to perform fall assessment and documentation as well as collect the patient information regarding fall prevention” (Breimier, Halfens, & Lohrmann, 2015, p. 8).Participants identified the Falls CPG included useful recommendations, were helpful in decision making, for each field (Breimier, Halfens, & Lohrmann,

In February, I had the opportunity to volunteer as a student nurse at one of Fresno State’s SAFE Balance screening sessions. This event was not only specifically important to our community, but to the entire realm of medical field in general because people are living longer. Not only is the elderly population increasing, they also are having to live with many other health issues, which is where medical professionals’ come into play to promote disease prevention, wellness, and overall living a lifestyle in the healthiest and most independent way possible. Precisely, one of the major health concerns among the elderly, is their risk for falls, since falls are growing an increasing problem in fractures, which often lead to other health problems.

The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare has identified 11 targeted initiatives. One of the initiatives focuses on patient falls. In fact, it is reported that “30 to 35 percent of patients who fall will sustain an injury” (Sentinel Event, 2015). Therefore, it is imperative for healthcare organizations to

Falling is a crucial issue among the hospitals. Even the hospitals make all the efforts to prevent falls, falls still occur frequently and some repeatedly. According to Currie (2008), approximately 700000 to 1000000 individuals fall in the United States hospitals each year. A fall in a health care organization is considered a never-event by Medicare and Medicaid services(CMS) (Cox et al., 2015). As the result, health care facilities are not reimbursed for hospitalized falls which increase the economic burden of hospitals.

Injuries resulting from falls are a serious health concern, especially with the growing elderly population. In adults aged 65 or more, injuries are the sixth leading cause of death and falls are the leading cause of these injuries (Al-Faisal, 2006, p. 5). Injuries from these falls may also reduce a person’s mobility and independence. “In the United States, one in every three older adults falls each year. In 1997, nearly 9,000 persons aged >65 years died from falls. Of those who fall, 20%-30% sustain moderate to severe injuries that reduce mobility and independence and increase the risk for premature death” (Al-Faisal, 2006, p. 5). We need fall prevention training set up in communities and in people’s homes to limit the

Prior to implementation previous data from the Quality Assurance Committee on falls frequency and falls history for past year will be analyzed for the participants. Each participant will be de-identified for confidentiality purpose and in compliant with IRB to protect the individual. During this multi-pronged approach, the project implementation will include weekly training of all shifts through formal and informal method, weekly tracking record of fall occurrences, the implementation of BRIGGS Healthcare fall risk assessment, and weekly interdisciplinary team meeting using the BRIGGS Interdisciplinary Post Fall Assessment for

The development of action plans to educate patients on how to prevent fall is also another consideration for preventing fall in this population. There are various tools developed to educate providers and patients about fall and how to best eliminate fall risk. These programs encourage providers to take an active role in assessing

Patient safety, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), is the “prevention of errors and adverse effects to patients that are associated with health care” (WHO, 2013). Of the many patient safety issues, falls are the most commonly documented undesirable and avoidable event during hospitalization (Quigley & White, 2013). The severity of injury sustained from the inpatient fall is categorized as follows; minor: injury that results in the application of a dressing, ice, cleaning of a wound, limb elevation, or topical medication; moderate: injury that results in suturing of a wound, steri-strips, splinting, or fracture; major: injury that results in casting, traction, or surgery; death: loss of life as result of a fall. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (2013) tell us that inpatient falls in the United States is somewhere in between 700,000 to 1,000,000 per year and that according to research, one third of these falls can be prevented. According to The Joint Commission, the average expenditure for an inpatient fall with sustained injuries is approximately $14,000 per each fallen patient (Brooks, 2015). The purpose of this Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) plan is to establish the best evidence-based practice in the prevention of patient falls by implementing specific interventions in an effort to achieve effective and measurable goals and evaluate the progress of said goals within a timely manner.