Preventing Patient Falls

Course overview

The healthcare industry has struggled with patient harm as a result of preventable slips and falls for decades. This is an important topic given the industrywide negative impact it has had on legal liability, patient harm, and industry reputation. This activity was designed to bring patient fall risk to the forefront of patient safety efforts throughout the industry. Through mindful integration of straightforward fall prevention protocols combined with ever-improving technologies, we can create a much safer environment for patients, reduce adverse liability, and advance our industry's image and reputation. This program will present data and information outlining the severity of patient falls throughout the current healthcare industry. Most importantly, it will illuminate past, present, and future targeted solutions to reduce these events to ensure a safer healthcare experience for all patients as well as reduced liability and penalties for healthcare providers. After completing this activity, providers/members of the healthcare team should be able to: evaluate the prevalence of patient falls and the impact that falls with injuries have on the healthcare system and our society; summarize fall prevention strategies that can be utilized in hospitals, clinical care centers, diagnostic settings and long-term care facilities; and demonstrate simple, office-based tests that can be performed to assess patient fall risk associated with patient gait, mobility, strength and balance.