The Joint Commission has identified a number of goals that are vital for quality improvement in healthcare. As they pursue these goals, such practitioners as nurses can be the driving force behind massive improvements in the care that they offer. One of the goals is preventing falls among patients (“Home Care National Patient”, n.d). Nurses are encouraged to help such patients as those who are taking medications that make them feel dizzy or weak because they face a greater risk of falling.
As a nurse practitioner, I believe that there are some steps that I can take to integrate the goal discussed above into my practice. Among the strategies that have been proven to prevent falls is reviewing the medications that patients are offered (Ruby, 2017). There are some medications that expose patients to an elevated risk of falling. Nurses need to work closely with other practitioners to ensure that patients are protected. By reviewing medications, the nurses are able to identify patients at risk and focus their efforts on protecting these patients. Another effective fall-prevention measure is modifying the environment by removing items that could cause patients to fall. For example, nurses could remove wires that could cause tripping. By ridding the patient’s environment of fall hazards, the nurses demonstrate that they are dedicated to protecting patients. Other effective interventions include educating patients and their caregivers, addressing foot problems that the patients experience and changing the patient’s footwear (Lee, Lee & Khang, 2013). All these interventions are rather simple and not costly. It should therefore be easy to adopt them into practice. I would challenge other nurses to reflect on the role that they can play in preventing falls. Given the intimate contact and relationships that they develop with patients, nurses are uniquely placed to help tackle falls and minimize the pain and discomfort that patients experience while in the hospital environment.
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References
Home care national patient safety goals. (n.d). Joint Commission. Retrieved November 12, 2018 from https://www.jointcommission.org/assets/1/6/2019_OME_NPSGs_final.pdf
Lee, A., Lee, K., & Khang, P. (2013). Preventing falls in the geriatric population. The Permanente Journal, 17 (4), 37-9.
Ruby, C. Z. (2017). Preventing in-patient falls: the nurses’ pivotal role. Nursing, 47 (3), 24-30.
