What to do when a patient falls

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Hey guys was just wondering what would be the correct procedure when witnessing a patient fall and trying to help them . I would assume it would be to do a assessment FIRST on the patient and call for help before moving the patient.

But that would be a guess any help would be great

Thanks in advance

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Specializes in Infusion, Med/Surg/Tele, Outpatient.

Um, call for help while moving to the pt. Assessing the pt while assisting back to bed a/o preventing further injury a/o stopping any visible bleeding. Call MD, inform, xrays done, call family inform, write incident report, email mgr for heads up.

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ask the patient...hey hey are you ok?

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

Assess for injury,summon help, and do VS as soon as possible. Where I work you have to fill out an incident report, do the neccessary computer charting, notify your charge and the family. If there is question of injury we call the doc.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Home Health.

Same here, assess, get help, fill out an incident report, get a full set of vitals, notify responsible party and MD. Depending on the extent of damage from the fall, we get an order to send for x-ray. Chart on the occurance in the patients chart. Do a fall risk assessment, and put the patient on acute charting ( so each shift will monitor and chart on the patient for about 3-5 days.

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