Fall Prevention - Evidence Based Practice Paper

Fall Prevention - Evidence Based Practice Paper Name Institution Fall Prevention – Evidence Based Practice Paper Problem Identification The rising cost of healthcare calls for reviewing of various practices in hospitals and care centers to reduce or rather prevent the occurrence of preventable injuries as well fatalities. Patient falls form one of the major issues posing a challenge to the healthcare sector and towards which health facilities are making huge investments to reduce its adverse effects on patients and the healthcare industry. The unprecedented or unintentional fall of an individual to the ground or lower level while still under the care of a healthcare practitioner is what is known as a patient fall. The healthcare issue may result in bodily harm on the patients or even lead to death in fatal occasions. Patient falls may lead to serious bodily injuries such as fracturing of important parts of the body as well as trauma to the head. Such outcomes lead to additional costs of healthcare as patients have to extend their days in the hospital for treating injuries incurred. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, healthcare facilities treat fall-related injuries to elderly patients every 13 seconds across the United States CITATION Qui15 \l 1033 (Quigley, 2015). An elderly person succumbs to fall-related injuries every 20 minutes while also leading to 55% of all the traumatic head injuries to children aged between 1 to 15 years CITATION Qui15 \l 1033 (Quigley, 2015). According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, out of 1 million patients hospitalized in the United States 700, 000 turn out to be victims of patient falls CITATION Age19 \l 1033 (Quality, 2019). The agency further puts the number of falls among patients in-home care facilities to be 800, 000 annually, which is approximately 50% of the patients under such facilities in the United States CITATION Age19 \l 1033 (Quality, 2019). Guidelines The Joint Commission recently provided a set of guidelines upon which the healthcare facilities in the United States can develop their diverse frameworks for implementing both interventional and preventive measures for curbing patient falls. The guidelines provided by the Joint Commission indicate a tactical strategy, which emphasizes the assessment of risk factors for falls and the patients who are at the highest risk of falling under care. The guidelines provided include increased awareness over patient falls among practitioners and the need to implement prevention measures CITATION The15 \l 1033 (Commission, 2015). The commission also proposes a collaborative effort among the different healthcare disciplines towards reducing the risk of falls, use of a standard approach to assess and identify the risk factors for patient falls as well as developing customized plans for patients whose risk factors for falls are already identified CITATION The15 \l 1033 (Commission, 2015). The other steps provided by the commission towards addressing the problem of patient falls calls for the standardization of the patient falls interventional measures and the effective management of patients after the fall CITATION The15 \l 1033 (Commission, 2015). Nevertheless, the guidelines have not been achieving the desired outcome as they lack a cohesive approach towards addressing the issue at hand. Increasing awareness among the nurses, for instance, may have no lasting effects on reducing the adverse effects of patient falls as it only focuses on one aspect of the healthcare sector. The awareness program should run through all stakeholders within the healthcare set-up including the patients themselves. A collaborative effort involving the management of healthcare organizations would also increase the facilities’ efficiency in addressing the preventable risk factors for patient falls. Innovative Strategies The health care industry has developed various interventional and preventive measures against patient falls and their subsequent injuries. The new measures or modifications are characteristic of a multidimensional approach by health institutions as they seek to address the rising health issue in most healthcare facilities across the nation. One of the innovations includes the multifactorial approach CITATION Phe16 \l 1033 (Phelan, 2016), which involves the assessment and management of patient-fall risk factors. The approach focuses on alleviating the patient fall risk factors associated with older patients under primary care and who also have a medical record of falls. Another innovative strategy to address the problem of patient falls in hospitals is the adoption of universal fall precautions. It is a holistic approach that applies the basic principles of patient safety that focus on providing a safe environment f...