Falls In The Emergency Department

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PREVENTING FALLS IN THE EMERGANCY DEPARTMENT

Changes happen when we believe that there is something wrong with the current system. In our everyday life we tend to make things safer, faster and simpler. The need for an innovation or new system arises to meet that specific outcome. Working as an emergency room nurse, every day I see lots of things that I believe are wrong and can be done in a better way in order to provide a better patient care. The purpose of this paper is to describe one problem that bothers me in my everyday nursing practice, and to provide a solution to it. Falls in the emergency department is one of the problems that I think about all of the time.
Emergency departments are usually crowded, very busy, and fast-paced work environments. These conditions make this place a high …show more content…
Working in the ED we all focus on the acute problem at hand and forget to address the most basic things. There is not enough research studies about falls in the emergency department, yet a study performed at the Hartford hospital in Hartford, CT revealed that in the year 2008, the average fall in the emergency department was reported to be 3.2 falls per month (Alexander, D., Kinsley, L. T., Waszinski, C., 2009). Falls cost too high both financially and in human suffering. Even though, falls have been recognized to be one of the leading causes of accidental death in the elderly population, it is also a common occurrence among hospital patients of all ages.
Emergency department falls are mostly not age-related and preventable. However age most often does play a role in the type of falls. There are many things

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