Raising Fall Prevention Awareness

Purpose:
Identify different methods to raise fall prevention awareness in the acute care setting.

Significance:
The prevention of patient falls in the acute care setting is a challenge that needs continuous improvement. Effective fall prevention programs ensure the safety of patients, producing better outcomes. Several measures implemented significantly reduced the number of patient falls.

Strategy and Implementation:
Nursing involvement in the selection of low beds with bed-exiting alarm features contributed to the reduction of inpatient falls. To further reduce the number of falls, the Fall Prevention Team was re-vamped in 2011. In an eight month period, the team implemented the following: • Fall risk assessment tools changed to improve identifying patients at risk for falls • Enhancement of visual identifiers • In depth fall analysis of each fall with involved staff • Agency and nursing-assistant fall prevention training • IT improvements • Fall-free Units incentive program

Evaluation:
In 2010, the new bed selection contributed to a 25% decreased fall rate. In 2011, the methods stated above further reduced the fall rate by an additional 25%. Overall, since 2009, the fall rate dropped 44%, and there was a 32% decrease in the fall injury rates.

Implications for Practice:
Some prevention strategies are obvious and may be used with many patients, however, there are some patients who present more of a challenge and demand creative and innovative solutions. Methods used increased the fall prevention awareness which dramatically lowered fall rates.