Outpatient Falls Prevention Program Outcome: An Increase, a Plateau, and a Decrease in Incident Reports

Abstract

The outcome of the outpatient falls guideline was characterized by an increase, a plateau, and a decrease in incident reports. The initial increase may be due to the Hawthorne effect. The plateau may represent the value closest to the true incidence. The decrease may represent the effect of the program.

How often are Patients Harmed When They Visit the Computed Tomography Suite? A Multi-year Experience, in Incident Reporting, in a Large Academic Medical Center

“…Overall 6 % of safety incidents in radiology are reported to be fall-related [5]. The incident rate has been reported to be 0.0046 % and 0.0064 % [23,26]. Most of the incidents caused injuries and affected outpatients [23].…”

“…The incident rate has been reported to be 0.0046 % and 0.0064 % [23,26]. Most of the incidents caused injuries and affected outpatients [23]. It is estimated that 28 % of falls in radiology occur in CT or MRI locations, 46 % of which were associated with subsequent injuries [58].…”

“…• Fall • Inadvertent change in a person's position from standing, sitting or lying down to lying on the ground or other surface lower than their starting point [23] • Patient was assisted to sit on the floor • Patient fell onto the floor • Patient slipped on wet area and fell on the ground…”

Rates of safety incident reporting in MRI in a large academic medical center

“…Identifying the nature of an illness by examination of the symptoms [13] The attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a diagnosis [13] Patient did not take medication Collar was not fixed in a patient who fell Insufficient contrast injection Wrong labeling of the sagittal images Fall Inadvertent change in a person's position from standing, sitting, or lying down to lying on the ground or other surface lower than their starting point [16] Patient was assisted to sit on the floor Patient fell onto the floor Patient slipped on wet area and fell on the ground…”

“…The rates of falls in acute care have been reported to be in the range of 1.9-3%. [39][40][41] In radiology, the incident rate has been reported to be 0.0046% and 0.0064%, accounting for 6% of incident reports, 16,19,42 with 28% of falls in radiology occur in CT or MRI locations. 42 The rate of fall incidents in our study was 0.012%, which accounted for 3.4% of our incident reports.…”