Falls Prevention In An Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit For Patients Over 60 Years Old Research Paper Sample

Dealing with falls cases in rehabilitation centers is a difficult task that faces health workers particularly when dealing with elderly patients. The problem is further alleviated in cases where the establishment has no concrete action plan for dealing with this safety issue that is highly recurrent rehab centers. This project, therefore aims at establishing an effective action plan that health practitioners in the rehabilitation unit could adopt as a way of reducing and preventing occasional falls especially among the elderly patients aged over sixty years. This is guided by the quality improvement plans and processes provided at http://qsen.org.
One of the health care organizations that can help me to accomplish my project is the Association of Rehabilitation Nurses (ARN). This organization has a mission aimed at promoting and enhancing quality of life of those affected by disability and chronic illness. It counts with more than 5,600 members who are actively involved in the mission. The organization has various supportive resources and evidenced based practice information that can be used in many care settings such as inpatient rehabilitation units to help prevent falls.

Global objectives

At the completion of this project, I will have designed Falls Assessment Tool that will be used to identify and prevent fall related risks.

Project objective

Create a safety committee at my facility and invite patients’ families, physicians, and maintenance department to participate.
Implement weekly meetings with the safety committee to discuss falls and new intervention strategies.
Post a list the new interventions in all units including patients’ rooms.
Create a new assessment tool for falls and submit it to the facility’s administration for approval.
As a way of completing the project, several steps will be used as follows:
Review the facility’s current falls assessment tool;
Identify trends in current falls such as time of the day and place they occur as well patient’s diagnosis;
Research evidence based practice interventions to prevent fall and review it with the safety committee;
Implement new intervention measures to prevent falls;
Evaluate the outcome of the new interventions;
Finalize and implement the new fall assessment tool in my facility.

References

Association of Rehabilitation Nurses- http://www.rehabnurse.org/about/content/About-ARN-index.html
QSEN Institute. http://qsen.org/competencies/quality-improvement-resources-2/
Tinetti, M.E. Preventing falls in elderly persons. New England Journal of Medicine, 2003; 348 (1):42-49.