Preventing Patient Falls
With the growing concern over “Never Events” and the huge costs connected with them, hospitals are striving to lower the occurrence of Never Events—to save both their patients’ trust and their budgets.
Although Never Events are considered preventable, some are far more prevalent than others. Patient Injury or Death resulting from a fall inside the hospital is a particularly high risk Never Event. As a result, additional concern should be applied to preventing patient falls.
The Cost of Patient Falls
Aside from lowering the safety reputation of a hospital, patient falls are a large financial burden as well. Since patient injury or death due to falls are included on the list of “Never Events” published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for 2009, hospitals are denied full reimbursement should any such event occur. Patient falls can cost even a small hospital tens of thousands of dollars annually, not including the cost of any resulting litigation.
See also the White Paper, “An Assessment of Falls in Patients’ Rooms and Methods of Prevention” which analyzes the severity of patient fall liability for hospitals; and methods of fall prevention.
Fall Prevention Methods
The great burden to reduce patient falls has led hospitals to incorporate many different methods and techniques over the years aimed at lowering patient fall rates. Risk-assessment tools have been popular in hospitals. Such tools include:
• The Morse Fall Scale
• The STRATIFY tool
• The Hendrich II Fall Risk Model
• Schmid Fall Risk Assessment Tool
Falls prevention programs have also been utilized. These programs can be used to educate both nurses and patients regarding fall risk factors and injuries that can result from falls. Some hospitals have even used extensive physical therapy to reduce the risk of falls for individual patients.
Fall Prevention Technology
From a technological standpoint, many devices have been implemented to help nurses respond rapidly to fall-risk patients. Bed fall alert systems and monitoring systems utilize a variety of alerts, both visual and auditory, to help nurses respond more quickly.
Recently, new technologies have become available, such as Dalcon Alert!, which integrates with patient monitoring systems and sends alarms directly to nurses regardless of their location. Because nurses receive patient monitoring alarms immediately with Dalcon Alert!, they can quickly react to alerts, and proactively reduce patient falls.
An Overview of CMS Never Events
Over the past few years, hospitals have begun placing extra attention on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Never Events, stimulating new policies aimed at reducing their occurrence. But what are Never Events exactly, and why are they so important?
Never Events Explained
The term “Never Event” was introduced in 2001 by the National Quality Forum (NQF). A never event is generally defined as an incident that should “never happen” in a hospital. Never Events are preventable, and may have serious consequences for both the patient and the health care facility in which the incident occurs.
There are six categories of incidents that may qualify as Never Events:
- surgical events
- product or device events
- patient protection events
- care management events
- environmental events
- criminal events.
Examples of these events include:
• Surgery performed on the wrong patient
• Misuse of patient care devices that result in patient injury or death
• Infants discharged to the wrong person
• Patient death or injury resulting from a medication error
• Patient death or injury resulting from a fall while being care for in the facility
• Abduction of patient from facility
The High Cost of Never Events
Aside from the great emotional and physical pain caused by Never Events, there is also a very real financial cost. As of October 1, 2008, CMS has required Hospitals to disclose all Never Events. Also, CMS has stated that they will no longer reimburse hospitals for Never Events. Nor will hospitals be allowed to push such costs onto the patient.
Hospitals bear full accountability for the occurrence of Never Events, and, as such, are liable to the great financial burden created by these events. Because hospitals are no longer reimbursed for expenses incurred by Never Events, these events will cost hospitals billions of dollars annually if they continue to occur at historical rates. Clearly, hospitals must find new ways to prevent Never Events, to limit the huge liability of these events.
Limiting Patient Fall Never Events
New solutions have been developed to limit the occurrence of Never Events. Dalcon Alert! is a system that decreases the prevalence of Never Event injury due to patient falls. Dalcon Alert! alerts caregivers immediately to events surrounding a patient by connecting with patient monitoring devices such as IV pumps and bed fall pads.
