Citation

Young-Xu Y, Soncrant C, Neily J, Boar S, Bulat T, Mills PD. J. Healthc. Qual. 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, National Association for Healthcare Quality, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1097/JHQ.0000000000000215

PMID

31306297

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: To provide up-to-date data on fall prevalence and trends in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) hospitals.

METHODS: Data were collected by the VHA Inpatient Evaluation Center (IPEC) between 2011 and 2017, to establish prevalence and trends of falls and major injuries occurring in acute care/intensive care units (AC/ICU), behavior health (BH), and community living center (CLC)/long-term care, using bed days of care (BDOC) as denominators.

RESULTS: A total of 204,681 falls were reported (rate = 4.8 falls/1,000 BDOC) during the study period, of which 2,549 (1.2%) resulted in a major injury (rate = 6.0/100,000 BDOC). Fall rates decreased over the 6-year study period for all unit types: 10% decrease for BH (p <.0001), 9% decrease for AC/ICU (p <.0001), and 3% decrease for CLC (p =.0043). Major injury rates remained consistent.

CONCLUSIONS: In this large descriptive study, fall and major injury rates varied by nursing unit type in VHA hospitals. Over the 6-year study period, a clinically and statistically significant decrease in fall rates for BH and AC/ICU units was observed as well as a small but statistically significant decrease in fall rates for CLC units. No trend was observed for major injury rates.

Language: en