Significantly reduce falls? It's possible!

The issue of falls is common among elderly individuals, whether at home, in nursing homes, nursing care facilities, or hospitals. In French-speaking Belgium, nursing care facilities are required to continuously collect various data in a registry, including falls. Currently, this information is stored but not systematically utilised for continuous improvement of daily practices. Based on these observations, the Platform for Continuous Improvement of Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety (PAQS) has been organising "fall workshops" since 2019. The objective of these workshops is to support institutions in implementing improvement projects based on systematic analysis of indicators, in order to monitor the impact of actions taken using the Run Chart tool.

In December 2020, several nursing care facilities embarked on a sixteen-month program to reduce the number of falls. Among them, Séniorie de Longtain and Résidence Bois du Manil were able to track their monthly number of falls over time, implement improvement actions, and observe statistically significant reductions of 31% and 60% respectively. What actions did they implement? Here are some examples:

• Establishment of a procedure requiring systematic reassessment of the risk of falling;
• Weekly balance workshops;
• Development of an awareness leaflet in rooms to draw attention to the risk of falling;
• Screening of restraints, their installation, and their appropriate indication in accordance with legislation;
• Implementation of additional nighttime checks by staff for fallers;
• And many more!

Discover the complete details of their improvement project in the full article.

Author: Laure Istas, Quality & Safety Officer, PAQS ASBL (www.paqs.be)