Hourly Nursing Rounds to Decrease Patient Falls

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Recommended: Overview on fall prevention

Patients are falling in hospitals and nursing homes on a regular basis. The number of falls per hospital has caused injury and death to some, and has cost hospitals a lot of money. Patients feel like nurses have a lot of work to do, and tend not to bother them when they want to go to the bathroom, which is the reasoning behind why many patients are falling out of bed. Many believe that falls should not happen in hospitals, and many insurance companies are no longer willing to cover the costs associated with patients falling. Therefore, many hospitals have looked for ways to implement interventions that will reduce the number of falls, because it is something that can be prevented to begin with. The articles that I have chosen for this paper reflect how hourly rounding has reduced falls in hospitalized patients.

Significance

The national fall rate is between 2.3-7.0 falls per 1000 patient days in hospitals, costing hospitals approximately an additional $4,200 per fall (Kalman, 2008). The numbers of falls that happen in hospitals are inevitable. They have caused injury and death for many patients while being hospitalized. It has also put on a toll for the hospital with the amount of money they have to spend that could be spent on other things, especially when this is something that can be prevented in a hospital setting as healthcare members are there to help, and are continuously in and out of patients rooms. In fact, this has become significant recently, as insurance companies are no longer willing to pay for falls that happen in hospitals, along with many other things. “In 2006, there were 2,591 cases reported of Medicare patients who fell out of bed” (Woodward, 2009, p.201). However, the bigger thing to recognize her...

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...ck to Basics: Hourly Nursing Rounds to Decrease Patient Falls and Call Light Usage and Increase Patient Satisfaction. Retrieved from http://stti.confex.com/stti/congrs08/techprogram/paper_37872.htm

Meade, C. M., Bursell, A. L., & Ketelsen, L. (2006). Effects of Nursing Rounds on Patients’ Call

Light Use, Satisfaction, and Safety. Retrieved from www.studergroup.com/content/ahc_research/...files/0906_calllight.pdf

Ulanimo, V. M., & Ligotti, N. (2011). Patient Satisfaction and Patient Safety: Outcomes of

Purposeful Rounding. VA national center for patient safety. Retrieved from www.patientsafety.gov/TIPS/Docs/TIPS_JulAug11.pdf

Woodward, J. L. (2009). Effects of Rounding on Patient Satisfaction and Patient Safety on a

Medical-Surgical Unit. Lippincott williams & wilkins. Retrieved from http://ovidsp.tx.ovid.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/sp-3.4.2a/ovidweb.cgi?QS2=434f4

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