Incorporate safety themes in patient falls prevention
Accreditation Connection, May 1, 2006
University of Utah Health Care in Salt Lake City uses an approach that illustrates how safety folks can embrace patient fall prevention.
The hospital uses a "fall risk assessment tool," or FRAT, to determine whether a patient has a risk for falling, says safety officer Murray Hayward, CSO.
Environmental conditions are one of the 13 factors that the hospital looks at to determine whether a patient is at risk of falling. The FRAT indicates scores for various fall threats, and based on the total, the hospital institutes fall prevention actions for high-risk patients, Hayward says.
The prevention steps include the following, which have ties to environmental safety:
- Keep beds in low positions
- Arrange rooms to decrease clutter and keep rooms neat and clean
- Keep call lights within patients' reach
- Use bed alarms
- Provide adequate lighting
Adapted from the May 2006 issue of Briefings on Hospital Safety, published by HCPro Inc.
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