Fall Risk Case Study

There are many dangers that can alter the patient’s safety when they are in the hospital setting. I have chosen to bring the ideals behind fall risk protocols to light. Many times, when looking at different patient’s charts, I have noticed that many of them have a fall risk score. I then had the following thoughts: What are the components of the test that give the patients their fall risk scores? Are the components of this test the same everywhere? Does the number they receive determine the actions taken by the hospital staff? What does this hospital do for patients at risk for falls? The point of this paper is to compare the protocols when it comes to patients with fall risks of Flowers Hospital in Dothan Al to what is considered up-to-date, …show more content…
The policies that are from Flowers Hospital came from the policies in the hospitals databases. This info includes: Flowers’ policies regarding fall risk, general information regarding fall risk, inpatient procedures for fall risk assessment, alarms to be used in the facility, outpatient procedures, fall prevention information, department specific information, patient/family education, and release forms for the patients. When I was searching for the information to compare this information to, I went to the internet. I tried searching many different topics including: fall risk in hospitals, fall risk protocols, gold standard for fall risk prevention, fall prevention in hospitals, and what ultimately led me to the information that I required was fall risk protocol standards in hospitals. I attempted to locate information on this subject in the Troy University library. However, due to my inability to navigate even the simplest libraries, and borderline adverse help, this lead to me gaining no information from this location. The information that I managed to gather game from two websites guideline.gov and nursingworld.org. These websites had both the guidelines/recommendations for the prevention of falls in acute care settings and Hospital-Based Fall Program Measurement and Improvement in High Reliability …show more content…
These basic principles are also heightened by this quote from nursingworld.org “Safe culture is further strengthened by strong interdisciplinary teams, which includes collaboration and cooperation among leaders, nursing staff, and staff from other disciplines” (Quigley, 2013). The items listed above are what is the rudimentary standard when it comes to the fall prevention portion of patient safety, according to the information that I have gathered. Comparing these practices to those of Flowers Hospital’s patient fall risk protocol answered many of the questions that I had, previously mentioned above. Per the policy laid out by Flowers Hospital, a fall is defined as: unintentionally coming to rest on the ground, floor, or other level, but not because of an overwhelming external force. Along with this there are multiple types of falls specified in their policy. These include: accidental (fall that occurs due to extrinsic environmental risk factors or hazards), anticipated physiological falls (factors associated with known fall risk as indicated on the Morse Fall Scale that are predictive of a fall occurring), unanticipated physiological falls (factors associated

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