According to Joint Commission (2015), “every year in the United States, hundreds of thousands of patients fall in hospitals, with 30-50 percent resulting in injury. Injured patients require additional treatment and sometimes prolonged hospital stays. In one study, a fall with injury added 6.3 days to the hospital stay. The average cost for a fall with injury is about $14,000” (Joint Commission, 2015, para 1). “An accidental fall has been defined as a sudden and nonintentional change of posture to the ground or a lower level, onto an object, floor, pavement, ground, or any other type of surface, and includes slipping, tripping (stumbling), falling on other people, loss of balance, and accidental stooping” (Mahmoud, Ghada Essam & Nassar, 201,
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Serious injury specifically includes loss of limb or function. The phrase “or the risk thereof” includes any process variation for which a recurrence would carry a significant chance of a serious adverse outcome” (Joint Commission, 2015, para 2). Falls that occur during a hospital stay are no longer being paid by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, so the hospitals are responsible for the additional charges the fall may accrue for imaging, prolong hospital stay, or surgical intervention (Fields et al., 2015). In addition, “Approximately 30% of these falls result in morbidity and up to 6% of these injuries are serious, including fractures, subdural hematomas, significant bleeding, and even death” (Fields et al., 2015). Furthermore, in the majority of the studies the mean age of patients who fell was 60.7 years. For that reason, fall prevention is not only important because of the financial burden, but most importantly for the safety of all their patients especially the elderly population. It is the hospital management and it is staff responsibility to provide a safe and healing environment for all their …show more content…
In addition, the method of collecting the data for each study was different. Such as a randomized control trial study, which is “a full experimental test of an intervention, involving random assignment to treatment groups; often, an RCT is phase III of a full clinical trial” (Polit, 2015, p. 390). Also, another study was a prospective descriptive study “ a study design that begins with an examination of a presumed cause and then goes forward in time to observe presumed effects: also called a cohort design” (Polit, 2015, p. 389). Another one is observational longitudinal research “studies that do not involve an experimental intervention and longitudinal study designed to collect data at more than one point in time” (Polit, 2015, p. 384). Furthermore, in the descriptive cross-sectional study, “research that typically has as its main objective the accurate portrayal of people’s characteristics or circumstances and/or the frequency with which certain phenomena occur and cross-sectional “a study design in which data are collected at one point in time; sometimes use to infer changes over time when data are collected from different age or developmental group” (Polit, 2015, p. 378-379).
Serious injury specifically includes loss of limb or function. The phrase “or the risk thereof” includes any process variation for which a recurrence would carry a significant chance of a serious adverse outcome” (Joint Commission, 2015, para 2). Falls that occur during a hospital stay are no longer being paid by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, so the hospitals are responsible for the additional charges the fall may accrue for imaging, prolong hospital stay, or surgical intervention (Fields et al., 2015). In addition, “Approximately 30% of these falls result in morbidity and up to 6% of these injuries are serious, including fractures, subdural hematomas, significant bleeding, and even death” (Fields et al., 2015). Furthermore, in the majority of the studies the mean age of patients who fell was 60.7 years. For that reason, fall prevention is not only important because of the financial burden, but most importantly for the safety of all their patients especially the elderly population. It is the hospital management and it is staff responsibility to provide a safe and healing environment for all their …show more content…
In addition, the method of collecting the data for each study was different. Such as a randomized control trial study, which is “a full experimental test of an intervention, involving random assignment to treatment groups; often, an RCT is phase III of a full clinical trial” (Polit, 2015, p. 390). Also, another study was a prospective descriptive study “ a study design that begins with an examination of a presumed cause and then goes forward in time to observe presumed effects: also called a cohort design” (Polit, 2015, p. 389). Another one is observational longitudinal research “studies that do not involve an experimental intervention and longitudinal study designed to collect data at more than one point in time” (Polit, 2015, p. 384). Furthermore, in the descriptive cross-sectional study, “research that typically has as its main objective the accurate portrayal of people’s characteristics or circumstances and/or the frequency with which certain phenomena occur and cross-sectional “a study design in which data are collected at one point in time; sometimes use to infer changes over time when data are collected from different age or developmental group” (Polit, 2015, p. 378-379).