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Cutler Institute for Health and Social Policy
Maine Rural Health Research Center

Evidenced-based Falls Prevention in Critical Access Hospitals

Abstract: 

This policy brief is part of a series of policy briefs by the Flex Monitoring Team identifying and assessing evidence-based patient safety and quality improvement interventions appropriate for use by state Flex Programs and Critical Access Hospitals.
Key Findings:

  • Hospital falls are a serious patient safety problem, accounting for nearly 84% of all inpatient incidents.
  • Most falls commonly occur as a result of medication related issues, toileting needs, and hospital environmental conditions.
  • Effective falls interventions target both intrinsic (e.g. physiologic) and extrinsic (e.g. environmental) risk factors.
  • Effective falls prevention teams are interdisciplinary and ideally include pharmacists, nurses, physical therapists, medical, and quality officers and are imbedded in a culture of patient safety.
  • Education for and communication across all staff contributes to successful falls prevention programs.
    Reporting falls data to one of the national organizations allows for benchmarking.
  • Publish Date: 
    12-31-2011
    URL: 
    http://flexmonitoring.org/documents/PolicyBrief24_Falls-Prevention.pdf