Prevention of Falls and Fall Injuries in the Older Adult

1. Scope and purpose of the clinical practice guideline - What are the scope and purpose of this document? What are the objectives, questions, and target population (patients, consumers, students, and so forth)? In other words, who are the recipients of the services outlined in the document?

This document’s purpose is to assist nurses to identify elderly patients at risk for falls and to implement interventions to prevent or decrease the number of falls and fall related injuries (RNAO, 2005). The target population are elderly adults in acute or long-term care. The recommendations are to help practitioners and patients make effective healthcare decisions, support nurses by giving educational recommendations, and to guide organizations in providing an environment receptive to quality nursing care and ongoing evaluation of guideline implementation and outcomes. These guidelines stress and interdisciplinary approach with ongoing communication and take patient preferences into consideration.

2. Stakeholder involvement - What professions are represented in the committee that developed the guideline? Have members of the target population been consulted in the development of the document? What conflicts of interest are possible?

For this practice guideline, the original development panel of six members included; a Chief Nursing Officer, Charge Nurse, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Clinical Practice Facilitator, a Professor from a School of Nursing, and an Education Coordinator. The revision panel members included; a Chief of Nursing & Professional Practice, an Assistant Lecturer from York University, a Clinical Nurse Specialist, Clinical Practice Facilitator, a Nursing Professional Development Educator, an Internist/Geriatrici...

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...ementation and suggested team-based problem solving and solid communication plans as solutions to these problems. Measuring for outcome improvement after implementation would be fairly easy as most long-term care facilities maintain fall reports and statistics for dates, times, locations, causative factors and injuries. This information can be compared from prior to implementation at various levels post intervention.

APA reference:

Pexton, C. (2010). Overcoming the barriers to change in healthcare system. Retrieved from http://www.isixsigma.com/implementation/change-management-implementation/overcoming-barriers-change-healthcare-system/

Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO). (2005). Prevention of falls and fall injuries in the older adult. Retrieved from http://rnao.ca/sites/rnao-ca/files/Prevention_of_Falls_and_Fall_Injuries_in_the_Older_Adult.pdf