Fall Prevention Case Study

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Fall prevention is a major element of patient safety and hospital’s reputation. A fall is defined by National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators as an unplanned descent to the floor with or without injury to the patient. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, about 700,000 to 1 million patients suffer from falls each year in the United States. Being nursing students and future nurses, fall prevention is something we should take into major consideration. Falls can lead to more health problems and can be life threatening for the patient. The prevalence of falls occurs mostly amongst partially dependent patients ranging between the ages of 64-74 years, and occurs most frequently in the bedroom. Risk factors for falls can be bisected into internal and external constituents. Internal …show more content…
A fall may result in fractures, lacerations, or internal bleeding, leading to increased health care utilization (“Preventing Falls in Hospitals”, 2013). The Joint Commission reported that a fall could potentially increase a patient’s hospital stay by adding 6.3 days. The Joint Commission also reported that the average cost of a fall is about $14,000. This is why it is very important to stress to nurses and all health care workers the importance of fall prevention strategies.
The first method of preventing falls is that the nurse does a risk for fall screening on admission. Nurses can use the Morse Fall Scale or the Hendrich II Fall Risk Model (for older adults) and integrate that into the electronic medical record. A nurse has to check off the criteria or provide a score for each category, total the amount of categories checked, and then based on that score initiate necessary interventions and fall precautions. The patient would get a fall risk wristband, which would allow all health care workers to taken special consideration when providing

Fall Prevention Case Study

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