Fall Prevention Essay

Each year, between 700,000 and 1,000,000 people in the United States will fall in the hospital according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ, 2013). Out of these falls, 30-35% of these patients will sustain an injury. Each of these injuries, on average, adds 6.3 days to the hospital stay and cost about $14,056 per fall. (Joint Commission, 2016). Injuries may include lacerations, fractures, internal bleeding, or even cause death. Research has shown that close to one-third of falls can be prevented (Ganz et al., 2013). A fall is defined as an unplanned descent to the floor or other lower surface with or without injury to the patient. In 2002, AHRQ listed falls as a “never event,” meaning that the event is a preventable, rare occurrence that could cause serious injury or death. In 2008, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) eliminated all reimbursement for any “never event,” sending a clear message to hospitals the importance of implementing fall prevention tools and programs in the acute care setting (McNair, Luft, & Blindman, 2009). The responsibility of ensuring that prevention tools are implemented and patients are kept free from falls, weighs heavily on nursing and the bedside care team.

Purpose

Despite the efforts of implementing fall prevention tools over the years, patients continue to fall. Joint Commission 2017 Summary Data of Sentinel Events

The theory provides a structure for nurses to determine a patients pre-existing self-care baseline, identify the patient’s deficit from their baseline, develop nursing goals to bridge the gap of the deficit, and identify types of nursing interventions to assist the patient back to their self-care baseline. The theory is broken down into three separate theories, self-care, self-care deficit, and theory of nursing systems, that together form the