Falls prevention was a major concern on the pediatric neurological clinical site. Many of the children on the unit dealt with impaired gait due to the processes of the neurological disorder they were diagnosed with. Because of the major role the brain plays in one’s ability to be mobile, it is understandable that these children require close monitoring in order to prevent injury from a fall. According to Messmer and Williams (2012), there is considerable concern of falls when a patient is hospitalized. Not to mention the heightened awareness that accompanies the sequela of most neurological diseases. Thus, an effective falls prevention program must be implemented in order to maintain the safety of the neurological pediatric patient population.
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Besides the obvious measures which are usually taken to prevent falls (encouraging families to assist children with all activities; raise all four side rails, provide socks with traction, and frequent rounding on patients), there was nothing else which could be identified as falls prevention mechanism. “The Joint Commission requires organizations to have a fall reduction program with interventions designed to reduce patient fall risk factors” (Messmer and Williams, 2012) however, the dilemma at hand is that there are limited tools to assess risk for a fall with children (Messmer and Williams, 2012). The lack of assessment tools for falls prevention in children is not to imply that there was not one in place at the clinical site, it is just important to note that there was not an obvious falls prevention protocol in place considering that it was a neurological …show more content…
In order to determine the validity of the HDFS, it was tested outside of the hospital where it was developed (Messmer and Williams, 2012). Unfortunately, the HDFS did not yield the satisfactory results in order to be used as an assessment tool for identifying pediatric patients who are at risk for falls (Messmer and Williams, 2012). Surely the lack of available assessment tools for prevention of falls in the pediatric population requires considerable improvement. An ideal tool would be one which takes into account the child’s developmental level in order to ensure the child is cooperative with their care and the measures being taken in order to establish their safety during hospitalization. For improvement of the HDFS, Messmer and Williams (2012) suggests “Since family-centered care is the care model for most children’s hospitals, further modification of the HDFS tool should consider increasing the number of parameters to include family attentiveness and behavioral actions” (Messmer and Williams, 2012); therefore fall reduction programs in a pediatric hospital setting should include the parents as well as they are often with the patient most of the time throughout the hospital
Besides the obvious measures which are usually taken to prevent falls (encouraging families to assist children with all activities; raise all four side rails, provide socks with traction, and frequent rounding on patients), there was nothing else which could be identified as falls prevention mechanism. “The Joint Commission requires organizations to have a fall reduction program with interventions designed to reduce patient fall risk factors” (Messmer and Williams, 2012) however, the dilemma at hand is that there are limited tools to assess risk for a fall with children (Messmer and Williams, 2012). The lack of assessment tools for falls prevention in children is not to imply that there was not one in place at the clinical site, it is just important to note that there was not an obvious falls prevention protocol in place considering that it was a neurological …show more content…
In order to determine the validity of the HDFS, it was tested outside of the hospital where it was developed (Messmer and Williams, 2012). Unfortunately, the HDFS did not yield the satisfactory results in order to be used as an assessment tool for identifying pediatric patients who are at risk for falls (Messmer and Williams, 2012). Surely the lack of available assessment tools for prevention of falls in the pediatric population requires considerable improvement. An ideal tool would be one which takes into account the child’s developmental level in order to ensure the child is cooperative with their care and the measures being taken in order to establish their safety during hospitalization. For improvement of the HDFS, Messmer and Williams (2012) suggests “Since family-centered care is the care model for most children’s hospitals, further modification of the HDFS tool should consider increasing the number of parameters to include family attentiveness and behavioral actions” (Messmer and Williams, 2012); therefore fall reduction programs in a pediatric hospital setting should include the parents as well as they are often with the patient most of the time throughout the hospital