Reducing Patient Falls in Hospital Environments - Paper Example

Chapter One: Reducing Patient Falls in Hospital Environments

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Patient recuperation in hospital environments is supposed to be one with minimum struggle, but unfortunately, patient falls occurs much more than expected. The author seeks out to explain the factors that contribute to the rise in patient injury within the medical setting. Various research has shown that patient falls is the biggest contributor to patient injury. Falls in the hospitals represent the major cause of patient injury hence prolonging the period of recuperation. The author clearly states that patient falls is highly avoidable if nurses were much more careful and better trained to conduct their activities. In a bid to absolve these challenges off the blame book of hospitals, the author proposes techniques that can be learned by nurses through a workshop training that would serve as a pivotal learning platform for the eradication of avoidable patient falls.

There is a need for the development of intervention measures to curb patient falls in all hospitals nationally. A problem associated with patient falls include a prolonged stay of patients in hospitals. Nurses have to be trained to handle patients in professional techniques that would help reduce the number falls in hospitals. The core reason for patient falls is usually patient and nurse related. Post-surgery effects and problems such as stroke contribute to weakened muscles and chronic conditions, it most cases patients with these backgrounds should be given high-level attention just to ensure that they do not succumb to more injuries in the hospital setting. Nurses on the other end contribute to patient falls through failure to respond to patient bills, and in other cases, beds are not positioned at the right height.

The most common repercussions of patient falls are; memory loss, cardiovascular problems, and a resultant poor mobility. To abate these challenges, the author puts forwards a project to improve the nursing practice in many hospitals. The project aims at launching intervention strategies that will result in nurses taking their professionalism to a higher level. The project is launched and tested at the Writer Organization with a 605-bed capacity and a multinational workforce of 2,848 employees; it has an annual patient influx of 600,000. The writer organization mission focused on delivering the highest quality of rehabilitative and long-term care services through comprehensive and holistic care. In addition, service provided in evidence-based and to be offered by competent staff in a safe environment. It is practical to say that nurses are the biggest contributors to the success of this project.

The intervention is going to abide by the Health Service Executive change model; this tool will help to structure the project steps, giving understanding for the need of change and techniques for project implementation. The project is going to utilize the SMART learning tool which is highly recommended as it serves to give learning goals in the most achievable ways. The objectives of the project are to have conducted a workshop for nurses working in the rehabilitation unit of the hospitals. The training looks into working out an educational session on fall assessment and the development of patient categorization practice. Nurses will be taught on the mechanism of safely transferring patients and handling their movement within the medical environmental. All patients being admitted in the medical environment will be informed regarding their condition and how to carry on their activities without putting their lives in danger.

Chapter Two: Improving Nurses Practice to Reduce Falls in Male Rehabilitation

Literature reviews offer an ample merge of the scholastic perspective and the area of research to show the credibility of the subject matter. Various literature from different scholars on the various mechanism of handling nurse training working in rehabilitation units. The reviews included the current areas of practice that needs improvement in order to reduce the number of falls in medical environments. This literature review looks into the significance of training programs to reduce patient falls, the need and importance of educating patients, the impacts of simulation-based training and the need for improving quality are and patient safety. The literature covered the following themes in review:

The Significance of education training programs for nursing staff is one of the themes of the literature review. In many cases, it is reported that a systematic and well-planned training session and positively influence the routine practice of nursing practitioners. It is reported that frequent training can help bolster the level with which nurses offer care to patients. This provides evidence that training programs play a critical role in shaping nurses to conduct their activities. Innovation is also encouraged by training as nurses learn new skills and also improve on those skills. Nurses should be trained on management of the old age group as they are more susceptible to falls, unlike younger patients. Training of nurses will help significantly in reducing patient falls throughout all medical facilities.

The next themes are the need and importance for educating the patients. Not only is the training of medical practitioners important but also the education of patients on measures with which they can protect themselves from danger. The education helps patients understand the core reasons for the measures taken by nurses during their stay in the hospital. It becomes easier to prevent falls if patients understand how to also take care of themselves while in the hospital. The patient and their relative are issued with education materials to help them get a clear understanding of handling themselves and their patient. Findings reveal that after conduction of education programs there have been tremendous changes in patient falls.

The significance of simulations based training is a technique rather than technology for replacing and increasing the probable real life experiences and design and implement strategies to reduce the occurrence of falls in rehabilitation settings. In this case, medical practitioners take up real life practices to test their skills with patient models to learn what happens in real life practices. Simulations use active learner engagement in executing teaching strategies for students nurses. Therefore, simulation programs are efficient when it comes to reducing falls in the male rehabilitation centers. They allow nurses to test an approach before using it in their day to day routines such that they analyze the risks and find ways to prevent them from employing them in real life situations. Overall, the nurse practitioners play a significant role in reducing the rate of falls in the rehabilitation centers. The next chapter will involve a discussion on the methodology implemented to improve nurses practice and reduce the number of falls.

Chapter 3: Improving Nurses Practice to Reduce the Number of Falls in the Male Rehabilitation Units

It is estimated that 30 to 35 percent of patients the US hospitals sustain injuries as a result of the fall. It accounts for 1 million patients whereby 11, 000 falls are fatal. The injuries relating to the falls result to an additional 6.3 day of hospital stay. The project is divided into stages starting with the planning phase. In this phase, the focus is on identifying the stakeholders that will be affected by the implementation of the program. In this case, we have doctors, nurses, medical practitioners, and government. These individuals are the ones who will be trained on the mechanism of reducing patient falls in the hospital environment.

The project is aimed at eliminating all the possibilities of patients fall and to protect customers from injuries such as the fractures, lacerations, and internal bleeding. These injuries can possibly be avoided when relevant change initiatives are implemented. A proper leadership structure will help in the enforcement and implementation of the project. Nurses will be trained on handling themselves within the medical facility while patients will be trained on using the beeper, the light, and simple bed adjustment activities if they are able to do it. Beds should always have their brakes tight in order to avoid beds swaying around and hurting patients. Clean up all spills at the relevant time. Keep patient care areas uncluttered to prevent congestion as well as to improve ventilation of air and light. This creates space for the patients to walk around while accessing the facility without being blocked by beds and other objects in the wards. Keep wheelchair wheel locks in "locked" position when stationary.

The medical staff will be interviewed in order to be able to gain the strengths and weakness of each nurse. This would help in assigning specific tasks to specific groups of individuals knowing that they will be performing at their best. Rules would play a critical in the implementation of the infrastructure, nurses and all medical practitioners involved in the subject shall be liable to the rules, and if at all a nurse is found out to have violated the rules, punitive measures can be taken. Team leaders will allow members of staff to be well versed with the project before commencing on implementation.

Implementation will be conducted using the PDSA model, which is an iterative problem-solving model that enables the implementers to plans, Do, Study and Act to bring change in an organization. In this regard, internal and external stakeholders will be used by collecting their opinions regarding things that are realistic and unrealistic in the project so that relevant measures can be taken to improve on areas that can work. The implantation will focus first on causes of falls in hospitals, and the best practices to prevent the falls shall be identified, and action is taken against them. The success rate of the project implementation shall be evaluated, and a model for mitigating the challenges faced during the implementation shall be strewn using perfect solutions.

In conclusion, in a bid to improve the conditions of nurses working in the medical environment, first, they have to be well trained on safety practices. Training programs will not be solely aimed for nurses but for patients too. Proper interactions with patients shall lower the risks of falls as awareness creation will have been conducted. The implementation of the project will require the participation of all the stakeholders as a collective measure in full-scale execution of the project.