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.

Too often a facility starts its fall reduction policy too late - after a fall has occurred. In order to have an effective and successful program, fall reduction must start with preventing falls. The first step in preventing falls is to identify those at risk for a fall.

For the sake of this discussion let’s divide your residents into two groups, new admissions and existing residents…