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Patient fall numbers go public in Massachusetts

Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education, October 18, 2007

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Information on falls within Massachusetts hospitals has recently gone public, with data being posted by the Massachusetts Hospital Association.

The association's Web site, www.patientsfirstma.org, notes that the state's 70 acute-care hospitals reported 4,573 patient falls from October 2006 through March of this year. About 1,000 of these patients were injured, according to the data. The Web site also features data on six rehabilitation hospitals and three long-term care facilities.

Massachusetts is one of the first states to make this information public; hospital participation in the program is voluntary, but all acute-care hospitals have reportedly agreed to release the information. Last year, falls were the most commonly reported incident by hospitals to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. In addition, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently announced that from October 2008 it will no longer reimburse hospitals for treating some preventable conditions, among which is patient falls.

Steps that can decrease fall risk include:

• Increasing patient monitoring by nurses
• Advising patients to ask for assistance when getting out of bed
• Instituting bed alarms to alert nurses when a patient gets up

Source: The Boston Globe

Other articles of interest:

California hospital fights falls

Hourly rounding improves patient safety

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