Outcomes of Adding Patient and Family Engagement Education to Fall Prevention Bundled Interventions

Abstract

Death rates from falls in acute care settings have risen sharply over the past decade. Reducing risk and ensuring safety requires attention to systems that help prevent and mitigate errors. The utilization of bundled fall prevention interventions that include a patient/family engagement education intervention teaching strategy is the focus of this paper. Design and implementation steps of this quality improvement intervention across two different patient populations and post intervention outcomes are presented.

Development and Validation of a Fall Prevention Knowledge Test

“…An effective fall prevention plan (item 2) involves the patient as an active participant in all three phases of fall prevention: conducting fall risk assessment, planning evidence‐informed interventions, and carrying out the plan. Patient engagement does not mean the nurse performs the assessment and then informs the patient about “what to do.” Patient engagement involves patients as active partners in their care, leading to better health outcomes in general and preventing falls in particular. Because these data were analyzed after all the educational sessions were complete, there was not an opportunity to change the sessions to better emphasize these concepts.…”

<p>Barriers and Facilitators to Older Adults Participating in Fall-Prevention Strategies After Transitioning Home from Acute Hospitalization: A Scoping Review</p>

“…3 Recent studies have shown that adequate selfmanagement may minimize the impact of falls in older adults. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] However, research is lacking on why some older adults engage in self-management actions and behaviors to prevent falls while others do not. 15 Research is needed to explore possible barriers and facilitators to engaging older patients in preventing falls post-hospitalization.…”

A Patient-Centered Approach to Fall Prevention

“…The literature review provided evidence addressing the components of the PICOT question which included four quasi-experimental pre/post studies (Duckworth et al, 2019;Dyke et al, 2017;Huang et al, 2015;Opsahl et al, 2017), two randomized control trials (RCTs;Hill et al, 2015;Kiyosho-Teo et al, 2019), and one systematic review of five RCTs (Avanecean et al, 2017). Primary evidence and systematic review tables are presented in Appendix C & D.…”

“…The change in reimbursement protocol by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) concerning hospital acquired fall-related injuries in 2008 caused acute care facilities to look closer into their fall prevention strategies (Spetz, Brown, & Aydin, 2014) since cost to treat these injuries are not reimbursable. Every person in the general community has a certain level of fall risk, and this risk is heightened when a person is hospitalized (Duckworth et al, 2019;Dykes et al, 2017;Opsahl et al, 2017). Experiencing a fall while hospitalized remains a major concern (Hill et al, 2015;Huang et al, 2015;Kiyosho-Teo et al, 2019;Opsahl et al, 2017) which is associated with factors like advanced age, multiple medications, incontinence, visual impairment, weak gait, terminal illness and poor cardiovascular condition (Huang et al, 2015;Opsahl et al, 2017).…”

“…Every person in the general community has a certain level of fall risk, and this risk is heightened when a person is hospitalized (Duckworth et al, 2019;Dykes et al, 2017;Opsahl et al, 2017). Experiencing a fall while hospitalized remains a major concern (Hill et al, 2015;Huang et al, 2015;Kiyosho-Teo et al, 2019;Opsahl et al, 2017) which is associated with factors like advanced age, multiple medications, incontinence, visual impairment, weak gait, terminal illness and poor cardiovascular condition (Huang et al, 2015;Opsahl et al, 2017). A similar study by Carroll, Dykes, and Hurley (2010) reported that common perceptions of inpatients as the major reasons for falling included toileting needs and loss of balance with unexpected weakness.…”