High fall risk

jaimemds · Mar 20, 2006

I usually put "resident will not receive serious injury r/t accidents" or "resident will utilize all safety equipment (i.e. body alarm, walker, etc) with staff supervision and education daily" sometimes you have to get very creative. I have also put the goal as number of accidents and severity of injury will decrease with use of ..."

dian57 · Mar 20, 2006

Risk for falls with injury will be reduced. Then list all the interventions you have in place to reduce the risk.

CapeCodMermaid, RN · Mar 20, 2006

We write "will have a DECLINE in the number of falls" and then make darn sure you have a new, appropriate intervention every time they do fall.

MDSlady · Mar 21, 2006

My first goal upon admission is "will remain free of falls through nursing interventions". After or if they have a fall (with no injury) I would change my goal to "will have no injury to fall or will get assist when getting up". After that, my goal is less that ___ falls per quarter. Hope this helps you...it has kept me out of trouble so far with the state............

joies1 · Mar 21, 2006

Gosh~ I'm going to jump right in here! Not that I have any great wisdom to contribute...... I work in assisted living and falls are one of the greatest concerns. I always wonder how to deal with a resident that you just know is going to fall. As you indicate goal setting for "no falls" is just unrealistic. With a frequent faller I have enlisted the help of the doctor to evaluate the medications along with a specialist in such things. That was, eventually helpful. I also had PT and OT evals and follow through. I and we educate and encourage to call for assistance constantly. I even had the staff making checks every time they entered the apartment - requiring at least 2/hour. I knew we were doing everything we could possibly do to safeguard this lady, but it still looks bad and feels bad when she falls. Her falls are less now with all our interventions, but she is still a lady with dementia, on narcotic pain meds and psychoactive meds, with poor motor skills and balance and.....impulsive. We finally did a 'risk agreement' so that we could not be held accountable if she did not comply with seeking assistance.

I have been working toward a 'fall prevention program' for a good while, though it keeps sliding below other priorities, so is unfinished. Any good ideas would be appreciated.

While I'm here. . . . . Can anyone tell me how to post a new thread? I can't seem to find the info and am new to this forum. Thanks!

nurse555 · Apr 11, 2006

This isn't a reply but a related question. Has anyone had experience in dealing with fed survey with high fall risk folks. I'm just curious to hear what their take on this is.

Thanks

CapeCodMermaid, RN · Apr 11, 2006

While I'm here. . . . . Can anyone tell me how to post a new thread? I can't seem to find the info and am new to this forum. Thanks!

Posting a new thread is easy. Just go to the home page of the forum you want to post at (good God, what crummy syntax!). Up in the left hand corner you'll see a button that says New Thread. Click it and you're on your way.

Antikigirl, ASN, RN · Apr 13, 2006

My facility realized not to fall was not going to happen...so they try very hard to make sure that if a person is to fall, despite all the implementations we do...that they are helped quickly and appropriate medical aid is rendered as soon as humanly possible.

What tends to scare most is the fall and no one comming for hours...that any facility can work on! Ample and easily seen and reached panic lights (we used bright colored ribbons so strings can be seen, then tied small stuffed animals to the cords for folks with arthritic hands that can't grip well), bed and mat alarms, baby monitors, mandatory 1 hour checks (or more/less dependant), and many safety equipment in the rooms as well as frequent checks for cluttered areas.

Walkie talkies for people to call for help (staff) was great too and if you called with the code ("ROF which is resident on floor) believe me we all came running. We even had drills and timed on our quickness and what we could do better (say you are in a shower with someone, and it took 2 minutes to finish and another 2 to get to the room...that isn't your fault, so management tried to come up with plans to account for quicker responce times if they could). Those actually were proactively done, so no one got in trouble unless they were goofing off or something.

Falls happen, and you do what you can to stop them, but stopping them is almost impossible, but making sure if a fall is to happen that a patient gets close to immediate treatment or help is a great goal!