|
Abstract
|
Background Within a tertiary-care pediatric medical center, the largest number of inpatient falls (8.84 falls per 1000 patient days) occurred within a 14-bed rehabilitation/ transitional care unit between February and September 2009. An interdisciplinary fall prevention program, Red Light, Green Light, was developed to better educate all staff and family members to ensure safety of transfers and ambulation of neurologically impaired children.
Purpose The purpose was to develop and implement an interdisciplinary pediatric fall prevention program to reduce total falls and falls with family members of this population.
Data Sources Pre-intervention 2009 data and longitudinal data from 2010-2014 were obtained from retrospective review of event/incident reports.
Event Identification This quality improvement project was based on inpatient pediatric admissions to a rehabilitation care unit accommodating neurologically impaired children.
Data Extraction Data extraction included: total falls, falls with caregiver (alone vs. staff vs. family), type of falls, and falls by diagnosis.
Data Synthesis Descriptive statistics were obtained on outcome measures; chi-squares were calculated on pre- and post-intervention comparisons. Total falls decreased steadily from 8.84 falls per 1000 patient days in 2009 to 1.79 falls per 1000 patient days in 2014 (X2(1) = 3.901, p=0.048)). Falls with family members decreased 50% post intervention (X2(1) = 6.26, p=0.012)
Limitations Limitations include: unit size nearly doubled post-intervention, event reporting changed to both uncontrolled and controlled therapy falls (safely lowering patient to bed, chair, or floor), and enhanced reporting increased numbers of post-intervention falls.
Conclusions Red Light, Green Light has resulted in reductions in overall fall rates, falls with family members, increased staff collaboration, heightened staff and family safety awareness, and a safer environment for high-risk patients.
Language: en |