Patient falls are some of the most common adverse events occurring in the hospitals across the United States of America. According to the study conducted by Bouldin and colleagues (2013) to provide normative data on the prevalence of fall in hospitals in the US, it was established that medical units recorded the highest number of cases of patient falls. The prevalence rate of patient falls was found to be 3.56 falls per 1,000 patient days. The study also sought to determine the secular trend in falls recorded over a period of 27 months before the implementation of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS) rule, which requires that hospitals should not be reimbursed for care for injuries caused by hospital falls (Bouldin et al., 2013).
The present case of patient fall in the XYZ hospital took place in the surgical unit. In this case, Allan, a patient who had stayed in the unit for three days before the incident, fell from his bed 1 hour after the nurse round had been conducted. It was discovered that the bed exit alarm had been off. Besides, the patient had been put on anti-depressants during the last visit by the nurse. These factors could have placed the patient at risk of falling. The safety standards for the facility require that fall risk assessment should be conducted for all hospitalized patients. This protocol was breached since Allan was not assessed for the risk of falling. Besides, the nurse in charge of the unit failed to set the bed exit alarm on.
Quality monitoring processes can significantly help in reducing cases of patient falls in several ways. For instance, quality monitoring can help in promptly identifying practices that put patients at risk of falling. Furthermore, monitoring help detect flaws in the implementation of safety standards.
References
Bouldin, E. D., Andresen, E. M., Dunton, N. E., Simon, M., Waters, T. M., Liu, M., & Shorr, R. I. (2013). Falls among adult patients hospitalized in the United States: prevalence and trends. Journal of patient safety, 9(1), 13.
