We Identified A Fall Risk, Now What Do We Do?
Most facilities screen every new admission for fall risk using the Morse scale during the nursing admission assessment. But then what happens? Unfortunately, in many cases, nothing else happens until the resident actually has a fall, and that is just too late.
In order to prevent likely falls or recurrence of a fall and manage their impact, a facility should have a strong interdisciplinary fall mitigation program in place. Such a program will help in keeping residents safe by preventing injuries that could be fatal, and in time less resident falls will help to elevate your star ratings as well as resolve individual resident problems.
Falls are the leading cause of injury deaths for older adults and 60% of nursing home residents will fall at least once in a year. More than 90% of hip fractures occur as a result of a fall. Since falls are multifactorial in nature, it truly takes a team effort to identify fall risks and the root causes of falls, and to determine appropriate interventions to prevent falls or the re-occurrence of falls. In the case of implementing an interdisciplinary fall program, we are truly talking about a full team effort. This means all your clinicians and departments - medical, pharmacy, nursing, social work, activities, maintenance, medical, dietary, and rehab - as fall mitigation will require a combination of medical interventions, rehabilitation and environmental adaptations, as well as specialty referrals such as ophthalmology, optometry and podiatry for example.
“But we already have a falls-related meeting every week, isn’t that good enough?”
Unfortunately, even if your team meets formally on a regular basis to talk about falls, it doesn’t mean you have a true interdisciplinary (IDT) falls program. An effective IDT Falls Mitigation program will need to include education for the team on their roles and responsibilities in preventing and mitigating falls among your resident population. The team must understand when and how to act when a resident is at risk, when a resident has fallen, and how and when to screen on an ongoing basis. Even your therapy team may need further education and tools to track and manage falling risk and patients pre- and post-fall.
If you are currently a monthly member of our In-House Therapy Alliance, then you have access to our complimentary Safe Steps Interdisciplinary Program for Fall Mitigation and free facility assessments. If you are not currently working with us, we recommend you find someone who can establish a falls program for you and help equip teams with the resources and tools they need to manage an effective falls program. We would welcome the opportunity to be that someone for you, email or call Elizabeth at 850-499-4345 and learn more today.
Written by: Elizabeth Johnson, PT, CDP, RAC-CT
Reference for facts and statistics: https://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/falls/adulthipfx.html
About Seagrove Rehab Partners
Our aim is to serve the therapy industry by providing a compassionate, people-centered approach to compliance and management support, including a proprietary solution for SNF in-house therapy programs. Our In-House Therapy Alliance not only helps our partners to be more compliant and profitable, but also puts the patient first. Mark McDavid, president, and our company associates are available to work with skilled nursing facilities, rehab agencies, and other healthcare providers at the client site, by phone, by email, by video conference call and through workshops and seminars.
