As hospitals and medical facilities gear up for the fall season, many are also choosing to spread awareness about patient fall prevention. In fact, fall prevention awareness week occurs every year on the first day of fall. It is a national event to help raise awareness about the risks of patient falls and increase nursing interventions to prevent falls in older adults. Moreover, since fall prevention is generally a team effort, nurses, doctors, and a patient’s community will all play important roles in successfully executing a fall care plan. Additionally, effective patient fall prevention plans may include the participation of common places where senior patients enjoy socializing, such as senior centers, libraries, grocery stores, as well as faith-based organizations. At the end of the day, an effective patient fall prevention campaign will strive to prevent falls in medical settings and also aim to reduce the risk of falls in older adults in their local communities.
If you are a nurse or another healthcare professional looking for some ideas on how to engage both your workplace and local communities in a fall care plan, then keep reading. Below are a few effective ways healthcare teams can start planning and running local events to raise awareness around patient fall prevention.
Fall Prevention Education for Nurses
While studies show that patient falls have decreased over the past years, unfortunately, patient falls are still relatively common. In fact, each year, roughly 700,000 to 1 million patient falls occur in US hospitals resulting in around 250,000 injuries. Therefore, fall prevention education for nurses can be the first step in dramatically reducing the risk of falls in the elderly population. Furthermore, fall prevention education for nurses can improve fall prevention in dementia patients and is specifically designed to increase patient safety in hospitals. This type of education can involve fall prevention workshops put on by a hospital’s human resources department. Additionally, a guest speaker could be invited to make a formal presentation on patient fall statistics. Likewise, fall prevention clinical education for nurses can be scaled down by requesting that nurses create and document a fall risk assessment for each patient.
Ultimately, clinical education, followed by a complete patient fall risk diagnosis by a nurse, is one of the most effective strategies to help prevent patient falls in medical settings.
Fall Risk Nursing Diagnosis
Nurses play a vital role in the creation and implementation of fall prevention programs. Therefore, nurses will aid in preventing falls for their patients by learning how to make a complete fall-risk nursing diagnosis. A fall-risk nursing diagnosis can entail the following:
- Closely monitoring a patient’s medical condition and documenting any changes
- Evaluating a patient’s overall risk for falls
- Evaluating environmental factors that could lead to patient falls
- Educating a patient and their family on falls and risk factors
- Reporting any falls immediately to physicians or supervisors on shift
While educating nurses on how to create and complete a fall risk screening and assessment for their patients has proven successful in the prevention of patient falls, there is still work to be done—particularly for residents in long-term care facilities. That’s because fifteen percent of patients in long-term care have a history of moderate falls in the past thirty days. Even more concerning is that approximately 1,800 residents living in long-term nursing facilities will die from falls in any given year. Therefore, it’s important that medical facilities not only educate their staff on nursing interventions to prevent falls in older adults but also ensure that fall risk awareness extends into a patient’s community.
Creating Fall Risk Awareness in Communities
Spreading fall risk awareness in communities is one of the simplest ways to help prevent patient falls in older adults. So, if you are a nurse or a healthcare professional and want to be proactive by creating a fall-free plan within a community, you can start by organizing events or simply sharing educational leaflets. You could increase community awareness around patient falls by leaving information or presenting at venues such as the following:
- Pharmacies
- Social Clubs
- Faith-based organizations
- Supermarkets
- Long-term care facilities
Additionally, fall prevention events can be hosted in a creative way by including activities that engage the local community, such as the following:
- Fall prevention BINGO
- Fall-free breakfasts or lunches
- Fall-free footwear and education
- Fall-free “Freebies” or giveaways with pamphlets and information
Which Fall Prevention Practice Should You Use?
Choosing an effective fall prevention plan to implement will vary depending on the medical institution, staff, and patient demographics. Generally, however, successful nursing interventions to prevent falls in older adults begin with education. By familiarizing patients, doctors, nurses, and the local community with the risk factors associated with patient falls, many patient falls can be prevented. Start by making a difference today and spread your knowledge about fall prevention strategies.
What will be your fall-free-care plan of action for this fall? We want to know!
