Falls Prevention Research Garners Award for Thompson Nurses

PATIENT CARE

With an unfamiliar environment, new medications and symptoms of illness, hospital patients are often prone to falls.

In fact, The Joint Commission – considered the nation’s premier healthcare quality improvement organization – reported in 2020 that hundreds of thousands of hospital patients across the country fall each year, with between 30 and 50 percent sustaining an injury.

Conducting a risk assessment is one way falls can be prevented, according to a 2020 report from The Joint Commission. But when it comes to older patients, the assessment may not reflect their own perception of risk.

F.F. Thompson Hospital nurses were recently recognized for their efforts to ensure older patients remain safe, receiving the Choosing Wisely® Trailblazer award from Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders (NICHE) and the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM). The award was designed to recognize a clinical team for improving care for older adults in one of the areas identified by the American Academy of Nursing’s Choosing Wisely® recommendations.

Thompson’s award was based on a research project the hospital submitted for the 2020 NICHE conference. Called “Patient Perception of Falls Risk,” it focused on whether a relationship exists between patients’ self-reported falls risk and the nursing assessment.

Interviewing nearly 100 hospitalized patients ages 65 and up, the nurses determined that upon admission, the majority rated their falls risk lower than the nurses did.

Patients who underestimate their falls risk require more education and information about the factors that increase risk of falling, the nurses determined.

“Very few studies have addressed patients’ perceptions of their risk in acute care settings,” said Vice President of Patient Care/Chief Nursing Officer Hazel Robertshaw. “It is rare for nurses in a community hospital of our size to undertake a research project – let alone a project as ambitious as this one – and I am extremely proud of our nurses for gathering insightful data to shed light on something that can lead to safer care within hospitals for our older population.”