You will all be aware that falls are a major public health problem. Globally an estimated 684,000 fatal falls occur each year, making it the second leading cause of unintentional injury death, after road traffic injuries.
In 2003, the World Health Organisation projected that the cost of fall related injury in Australia by 2051 will increase almost three fold to $1,375 million per year, with an additional 1.17 million bed days per year (the equivalent of 3,300 additional beds being allocated to fall-related injury treatment).
We know that falls are an issue at Western Health. Falls that occur in hospitalised patients are among the most common incidents reported in hospitals complicating approximately 2% of all hospital stays. This is not good for anyone involved, with the impact of inpatient falls being far reaching:
For patients:
- Increased risk of repeat falls and harm
- Chronic pain/injury
- Fear of falling and resulting loss of independence
- Distress – patients and families
- Increased requirements for long term care needs
For staff and health services:
- Psychological impact on staff when patients fall in their care
- Extended LOS and cost burden
The function of the Western Health Falls Taskforce is to oversee the development of a Falls Improvement Plan. The Taskforce has undertaken a gap analysis completed against the Comprehensive Care standard, and has identified variations and trends. Recommendations have been developed following in-depth case reviews, and based on evidence based best practice from the four taskforce subcommittees that are focusing on:
- Consumer Participation
- Governance
- Equipment/Environment
- Clinical Practice Education
Additionally co-design methodology is being utilised to engage ward teams to generate strategies to ensure sustainable solutions. These strategies are supporting:
- Teams to understand own falls data
- NUMs to engaging with their leadership groups and organising leadership meetings to discuss data
- NUMs leading discussions with multidisciplinary team to build accountability and ownership, identify suggestions and ideas on how to target local issues
- Teams reviewing various internal processes including handover
- Elimination of knowledge deficits, including an EMR auditing Masterclass
- Creation of a formal role for Falls Champions on wards
- Leading a culture of Best Care
So, how are we doing? There has been some great improvements across our sites. Well done everyone! There is still a way to go, but we are well and truly heading in the right direction. For more details see below.