Steps At A Strategic Action Plan

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Fall prevention needs to be the target of many hospitals. Falls occur each year in hospitals and can be detrimental to the patient, especially the elderly patient (Peel, Travers, Bell, & Smith, 2010). Falls can lead to broken bones, longer stays in the hospital and potentially can lead to death. Falls are expensive to both the patient and the hospital (Trepanier & Hilsenbeck, 2014). This paper would like to take a look at a strategic action plan that would help to prevent falls. This plan of action will includes organizational changes that are geared towards fall prevention. The second part of this paper will include an evaluation plan that is designed to measure and monitor the plan.
Strategic Action Plan
Assessing the reason for the falls would be the first step in the plan. Is there any repetition of the reason behind the fall (Olrich, Kalman, & Nigolian, 2012)? For instance, is there frequent falls at a certain time of the day such as during shift change? Also it may be helpful to know if the fall was related to tethers such as IV poles or Foley catheters. It may also be a good idea to look at the type of patient who fell, is the patient reported to be confused at the time of the fall? Is there any history of dementia reported for the patient that fell? Once all the information is gathered then the pertinent information could be categorized into groups that would help to decipher the best plan of action to prevent falls. The plan would need to be written and approved by the nursing managers and may be put into place by the clinical leaders that are involved with the unit. Although each unit is different some of the ways to prevent falls are similar in all units in the hospital and a team should be formed that would use the inf...

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... the importance of prevention of falls for the patients on the unit (Roussel, 2013). Further evaluation would establish if the plan set was successful in decreasing the amount of falls or if the plan need to be revised. If changes need to occur the written guidelines should be revised and shared with the staff so that revision that will take place.
Outcomes of Fall Prevention
It is the hope and the goal of many hospital staff to help to decrease the number of falls in the hospital setting. The hope is to establish a plan that will assist nursing staff to decrease the number of falls. Falls can be extremely harmful to the elderly. Preventing falls is a much need goal that will bring better outcomes for the patient and the hospital. Evaluation of the action plan will also be planned for so that revisions can be made as needed to decrease the amount of patient falls.

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