Essay On Hospital Rounding

Falls in the hospital setting is a large clinical problem that many healthcare facilities face when taking care of patients who are elderly and confused. Many of these facilities lose millions of dollars to falls every year due to extended length of stay, fatalities, and injuries due to the fall. There are three to eleven falls per 1000 patient days (Mion, 2012). The average cost for a hospital fall was over $13,000 (Mion, 2012). There are patients who fall during their hospital stay who sustain a fatal traumatic brain injury. This leads to lawsuits, expediting more financial means from a facility.
Facilities have taken it very seriously to develop new programs to reduce the amount of falls occurring in their facility. Many facilities …show more content…
This model contains the four P’s, which include pain, positioning, potty, and possessions (Studer Group, 2008). Every hour, the nurse or nurse’s aides should round on these patients ensuring that the four P’s are in place. The Studer Group developed this model after Meade, Bursell, &Ketelsen discovered in 2006 that hourly rounding did reduce patient fall rates in hospitals. The CDC has predicted that the cost for falls in the healthcare setting will reach $43.8 billion dollars by 2020 (CDC, …show more content…
Patients are safe and more satisfied, which increases staff satisfaction and reduces staff turnover (Meade et al., 2006). This hourly rounding model has been implemented and used in conjunction with the Joint Commission initiatives for improving patient fall rates. The four P’s system provides a way of assessing for patient needs before the patient finds a reason to get out of bed. By frequently rounding, patients are less inclined to try and perform “positioning” and “pottying” on their own. Hourly rounding and assessing that the patient’s four P’s have been provided for will help to reduce patient falls, increase patient satisfaction, and reduce the amount of money facilities lose yearly to patient