Despite a large quantitative evidence base for guiding fall risk assessment and not needing highly technical, scarce, or expensive equipment to prevent falls, falls are serious problems in hospitals.
The objective of this study was to obtain the views of nurses and assistants as to why and how to overcome patient falls in acute care hospitals.
Basic content analysis methods were used to interpret descriptive data from four focus groups with nurses (n = 23) and four with assistants (n = 19) in four acute hospitals, two urban academic medical centers, and two suburban teaching hospitals in the same hospital system.
Positive and negative components of six concepts–patient report, information access, signage, environment, teamwork, and involving patient/family–formed two core categories: knowledge/communication and capability/actions that are facilitators or barriers, respectively, to preventing falls.
Linkage between risk assessments and individualized care plans were not determined.