Reducing Falls with Purposeful Rounding

CHALLENGE

A 12-hospital system in the mid-Atlantic, began a new patient safety initiative in 2014 focusing on preventable falls. Specifically, their goals were to reduce both the number of falls per 1,000 patient days and the number of falls that resulted in injuries. To achieve this goal, one hospital sought to ensure staff members complied with fall prevention protocols.

SOLUTION

The hospital system implemented CipherRounds earlier in the year to enhance the nurse manager rounding process. Nurse managers at the hospital-level recognized an opportunity to expand the scope of the rounding application to identify patients at risk for falls through environmental assessments. Together, nurse managers and CipherHealth success managers developed a rounding script that included key environmental factors to check for, such as a missing yellow armband or fall mat. If fall prevention measures were not in place, an automatic alert was triggered to the appropriate staff for resolution. Additionally, nurse managers had the ability to assign a fall-risk flag to patients within the application so that other nurse managers were informed when rounding.

RESULTS

After implementing the fall prevention script into the CipherRounds application, the overall fall rate was reduced by 78% and that with injury by 85%, decreases that exceeded health system’s goals. Due to the success of this program, the health system expanded fall prevention rounding with CipherHealth to facilities across the system.

Fall Rate Pre Vs. Post CipherRounds

PROFILE: 183-bed urban hospital, PRODUCT: Patient Rounds, PROGRAM: Nurse Leader Rounding, BASELINE: Q3 2014, COMPARATIVE: Q4 2014