Exploring the contributory factors for un-witnessed in-patient falls from the National Reporting and Learning System database
2011
Age and Ageing
Journal Article
Issue 1
Volume 40
Pages 135-138
Author(s): Hignett, S., Sands, G., Griffiths, P.
Added December 2014
An epidemiological study of falls on integrated general medical wards.
2000
International Journal of Clinical Practice
Journal Article
Issue 10
Volume 54
Pages 654-657
Author(s): Vassallo, M., Azeem, T., Pirwani, M. F., Sharma, J. C., Allen, S. C.
Inpatient falls are common and may result in serious physical and psychological morbidity. In hospitals, quality of care is important for healthcare workers, patients, and their relatives. Falls and accidents are therefore an important risk management issue.
Added November 2014
Heights of occupied patient beds: a possible risk factor for inpatient falls.
2008
Journal of Clinical Nursing
Journal Article
Issue 11
Volume 17
Pages 1503-1509
Author(s): Tzeng, H. M., Yin, C. Y.
The height of occupied patient beds can be an overlooked contributor to inpatient falls. Hospital bed frames are still eight–12 inches higher than those of home bedframes. The difference in heights may contribute to inpatient falls related to getting in and out of bed and to the severity of fall-related injuries. Better physical design of hospital equipment such as patient beds may reduce patient falls and injuries.
Added November 2014
Are call light use and response time correlated with inpatient falls and inpatient dissatisfaction?
2009
Journal of Nursing Care Quality
Journal Article
Issue 3
Volume 24
Pages 232-242
Author(s): Tzeng, H. M., Yin, C. Y.
Inpatients use call lights to seek nurses’ assistance. Although implied in patient safety, no studies have analyzed data related to the use of or response time to call lights collected by existing tracking mechanisms monitoring nursing practice.
Added November 2014
Pediatric inpatient falls and injuries: a descriptive analysis of risk factors.
2012
Journal for Specialists in Pediatric Nursing
Journal Article
Issue 1
Volume 17
Pages 10-18
Author(s): Schaffer, P. L., Daraiseh, N. M., Daum, L., Mendez, E., Lin, L., Huth, M. M.
Falls are the leading cause of nonfatal injuries treated in emergency departments in the United States. Children’s falls have the potential for injury and other negative patient outcomes (e.g., increased length of hospital stay and increased costs). To prevent these fall occurrences and injury outcomes, a comprehensive assessment of the factors surrounding falls in hospitalized children is essential to developing best-practice interventions.
Added November 2014
Patient falls: An outcome indicator.
1991
Journal of Nursing Care Quality
Journal Article
Issue 1
Volume 6
Pages 25-29
Author(s): Ruckstuhl, M. C., Marchionda, E. E., Salmons, J., Larrabee, J. H.
While a patient is in the hospital, that institution is responsible for his or her well-being. Patient falls are detrimental to patient safety and frequently represent the largest category of incident reports submitted to risk management. Thus, hospitals today are strongly motivated to reduce patient falls because quality care is of utmost importance to both the patient and the institution. However, today's climate of cost containment and litigious actions provides additional incentives for assuring quality of care by preventing patient falls.
Added November 2014
Can flooring and underlay materials reduce hip fractures in older people?
2004
Nursing Older People
Journal Article
Issue 5
Volume 16
Pages 16-20
Author(s): Minns, J.
Falls resulting in fracture of the hip in older people are a major health problem worldwide. Flooring that is slippery and unsuitable footwear are other major factors contributing to the onset of fractures in the home. Building design should incorporate measures to minimize the risk of falls.
Added November 2014
Fall and injury prevention in residential care: effects in residents with higher and lower levels of cognition.
2003
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
Journal Article
Issue 5
Volume 51
Pages 627-635
Author(s): Jensen, J., Nyberg, L., Gustafson, Y., Lundin-Olsson, L.
The prevention of falls and injuries in older people with cognitive impairment is an important concern in public health. It is of vital interest to investigate whether older people with significant cognitive impairment would benefit from fall prevention strategies.
Added November 2014
Targeting environmental factors to reduce elderly in-patient falls.
2010
Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare/ 3rd International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics [AHFE], 17-20 July 2010, Miami, USA.
Journal Article
Author(s): Hignett, S., Sands, G., Youde, J., Griffiths, P.
Inpatient falls have consistently been the biggest single category of reported incidents since the 1940s; they are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality and have a high prevalence after admission to hospital. The incident rate for falls is approximately three times higher in hospitals and nursing homes than in community-dwelling older people. It has been suggested that this may be due to a combination of extrinsic risk factors (relating to the environment), for example, unfamiliar environment and wheeled furniture, combined with intrinsic risk factors (relating to the patient) such as confusion, acute illness, and balance-affecting medication.
Added November 2014
An analysis of falls in the hospital: Can we do without bedrails?
1999
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
Journal Article
Issue 5
Volume 47
Pages 529-531
Author(s): Hanger, H. C., Ball, M. C., Wood, L. A.
Falls and injuries from falls are common in older patients in institutions, evoking a common response of using restraints, such as bedrails or cot sides, to further prevent harm. However, there is no compelling evidence that restraints reduce the risk of falls and/or injuries.
Added November 2014
Pragmatic, Cluster Randomized Trial of a Policy to Introduce Low-Low Beds to Hospital Wards for the Prevention of Falls and Fall Injuries
2010
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
Journal Article
Issue 3
Volume 58
Pages 435-441
Author(s): Haines, T. P., Bell, R. A. R., Varghese, P. N.
Falls by hospitalized older adults are a common and potentially debilitating adverse event. In the United States, Medicare no longer confers incremental payments to hospitals for eight secondary conditions that it perceives as preventable complications of medical care, with falls from bed being one of these. Development of a policy to introduce low-low beds, which reduce the potential for injury if patients fall from the bed, on hospital wards is attractive, given the hypothesized benefits.
Added November 2014
Quality improvement project eliminates falls in recovery area of high-volume endoscopy unit.
2011
BMJ Quality & Safety
Journal Article
Issue 2
Volume 20
Pages 170-173
Author(s): Francis, D. L., Prabhakar, S., Bryant-Sendek, D. M., Larson, M. V.
Patient falls associated with healthcare delivery are frequent, undesirable, and largely preventable events. Patients who receive conscious sedation for endoscopic procedures are especially vulnerable to falls because of the cognitive effects of the sedation, relative hypotension that may be induced by the most common sedatives used (fentanyl and midazolam), the prolonged fasting state, and the frequent practice of withholding regular daily medications prior to procedures. There is a need to evaluate patient falls after sedated endoscopic procedures.
Added November 2014
Why do patients in acute care hospitals fall? Can falls be prevented?
2009
Journal of Nursing Administration
Journal Article
Issue 6
Volume 39
Pages 299-304
Author(s): Dykes, P. C., Carroll, D. L., Hurley, A. C., Benoit, A., Middleton, B.
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.
Added November 2014
Pilot cluster randomised controlled trial of flooring to reduce injuries from falls in wards for older people.
2013
Age and Ageing
Journal Article
Issue 5
Volume 42
Pages 633-640
Author(s): Drahota, A. K., Ward, D., Udell, J. E., Soilemezi, D., Ogollah, R., Higgins, B., Dean, T. P., Severs, M.
Inpatient falls are a major issue for hospitals and are associated with mortality, morbidity and financial costs. Falls are particularly prevalent in elderly care environments, where patients have more risk factors for both falls and injury. With an aging society, this is an issue of increasing concern.
Added November 2014
Cluster randomised trial of a targeted multifactorial intervention to prevent falls among older people in hospital.
2008
British Medical Journal
Journal Article
Issue 7647
Volume 336
Pages 758-760
Author(s): Cumming, R. G., Sherrington, C., Lord, S. R., Simpson, J. M., Vogler, C., Cameron, I. D., Naganathan, V.
Falls often occur among older people in hospitals, resulting in injuries, increased lengths of stay, and greater costs to the health center. Evidence on the best way to prevent falls in hospitals is limited.
Added November 2014
Sustained reduction in serious fall-related injuries in older people in hospital.
2006
The Medical journal of Australia
Journal Article
Issue 8
Volume 184
Pages 379-382
Author(s): Fonda, D., Cook, J., Sandler, V., Bailey, M.
Falls are the leading cause of injury in Australian hospitals, with 38 percent of all hospital incidents related to falls. In hospital settings, single interventions have not been proven successful in preventing or reducing falls, whereas multisystem or multi-strategy approaches have shown to be more effective.
Added November 2014
Applying root cause analysis to improve patient safety: decreasing falls in postpartum women.
2010
Quality & Safety in Health Care
Journal Article
Issue 2
Volume 19
Pages 138-143
Author(s): Chen, K. H., Chen, L. R., Su, S.
The objective of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of interventions to prevent falls designed through hazard analysis using root cause analysis.
Added November 2014
Healthcare Environments Baseline Assessment for Safety & Quality, Chapter 8: Falls
2011
Noblis/Gerorgia Tech, TRICARE
Report
Author(s): Choi, Y. S., Noblis, Georgia Tech
Added November 2014
Managing Elders’ Wandering Behavior Using Sensors-based Solutions: A Survey
2014
International Journal of Gerontology
Journal Article
Issue 2
Volume 8
Pages 49-55
Author(s): Lin, Q., Zhang, D., Chen, L., Ni, H., Zhou, X.
Added November 2014
Hospital bathroom ergonomics: Safety, usability and accessibility issues
2014
Clinical Nursing Studies
Journal Article
Author(s): Capodaglio, E. M.
The design of a hospital bathroom is important in terms of its usability and accessibility and crucial for patient and staff safety. A bathroom’s design and layout becomes more important in a rehabilitation unit, where patient mobility is restricted for various reasons.
Added November 2014
