5 Reasons Why Patient Falls Should be Your Facility’s Top Priority

5 Reasons Why Patient Falls Should be Your Facility’s Top Priority

1.       Keeping patients safe from fall injuries is one of The Joint Commission’s Hospital Accreditation Standards

Initially a National Patient Safety Goal created by The Joint Commission, addressing and managing patients’ risk for falls became a Hospital Accreditation Standard in 2010.

Standard PC.01.02.08
The hospital addresses and manages the patient’s risk for falls.

This means that critical access hospitals must act in accordance with this standard, and facilities looking to become accredited by The Joint Commission must also satisfy these standards.

Patients often look to ratings, reviews, and accreditations when choosing a hospital for care. Meeting The Joint Commission’s Hospital Accreditation Standards gives patients peace of mind and helps ensure that hospitals are providing safe and effective care in accordance with nationally recognized standards.

2.       Falls from the hospital bed are associated with serious complications

Falls from the hospital bed can result in serious injuries including fractures, dislocations, and brain injuries. It should be a facility’s top priority to provide a patient with a safe environment and reduce the risk of falls and associated injuries.

A patient fall can also result in a loss of self-confidence, which can lead to uncertainty in a patient’s abilities and cause repeat falls. A patient may be unwilling to be active and mobile after a devastating fall, which can further increase the risk of repeated falls.

Patients who have experienced a fall in the past are 3 times more likely to experience future falls. By minimizing the initial risk, hospitals can prevent complications from injuries and self-confidence that can increase the prevalence of patient falls.

3.       Hospitals are no longer reimbursed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid for patient falls

As of October 1, 2008, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) has stopped reimbursing hospitals for the additional cost of care when treating a patient harmed by a Hospital Acquired Condition (HAC). Patient fall injuries including fractures, dislocations, and brain injuries are classified as reasonably preventable errors that will no longer be paid for by the CMS.

The average Medicare payment for the treatment of injuries from a patient fall was $24,962. Given the frequency of patient falls, this HAC could add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment costs alone for individual hospitals each year.

Reducing the rate of falls in your facility could not only save millions of dollars over the span of a decade, but it will improve patient safety throughout your facility.

4.       Patients who fall stay in the hospital longer

Patient falls are the most common Hospital Acquired Condition in the United States, accounting for 75% of all inpatient incidents. On average, patients who experience a fall in the hospital are treated for 12.3 days longer than patients who did not experience a fall.

By reducing the number of falls that occur in the hospital, patient turnover can increase. Not only do hospital-acquired falls cost hospitals money, but treating patients who have experienced falls reduces bed availability. Hospitals can improve efficiency and reduce patient wait times by implementing fall reduction strategies and creating a safer environment for patients.

5.       Seniors are more likely to experience falls

Today, 1 in 5 senior patients are expected to experience a fall in a hospital setting. By 2030, it is expected that seniors will account for over 50% of all hospital admissions and will occupy 59% of available hospital beds. Consequently, more seniors in the hospital means more falls will occur in the hospital setting.

Every year, millions of baby boomers are turning 65 and become part of the prime demographic of falls. Creating strategies to minimize the risk of patient falls today will help reduce the number of expected senior falls in the future.

http://www.americannursetoday.com/article.aspx?id=7634&fid=7364

http://www.jcrinc.com/common/PDFs/fpdfs/pubs/pdfs/JCReqs/JCP-12-09-S6.pdf

CHG Hospital Beds specializes in low hospital beds that are designed to prevent patient falls and related injuries within acute care environments. We are focused on patient and nurse safety and deliver innovative solutions to meet the needs of our customers.

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Nurse Burnout: Causing the Spread of Infection?

Nurse Burnout: Causing the Spread of Infection?

Each year, over 2 million patients are affected by a Hospital Acquired Infection in the United States. Over 100,000 patients die every year of complications from Hospital Acquired Infections like MRSA, E. coli, and C. difficile. A new study published by the American Journal of Infection Control has found that nurses may be a contributor to the spread of infection, especially when working long hours and caring for too many patients at a time.

When nurses are overworked, infection control can sometimes be ignored. Nurse-to-patient ratios and the increasing hours of nursing care per patient can actually contribute to an increased rate of infection in the hospital.

The American Journal of Infection Control observed the effect on nurse staffing and burnout on Hospital Acquired Infections like urinary tract infections and surgical site infections, but the implications can be similar for nosocomial infections like MRSA and E. coli. Increasing a nurses’ workload by only 1 patient was found to increase the likelihood of a patient contracting an infection.

This 1 extra patient requires extra time out of the nurse’s day to monitor, provide medication and other bedside care, on top of caring for other patients. Burned-out and overworked nurses can sometimes forget, or become too busy, to ensure proper hand washing throughout the day. When time is at a premium and nurses are caring for multiple patients, infection control may not be a top priority – especially when a patient is in distress.

The Cost of Understaffing

Hospital Acquired Infections cost over $5 billion each year. Since 2008, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) no longer pays the cost to treat urinary tract infections or surgical site infections. As the CMS continues to reduce payments for preventable conditions, nosocomial infections from MRSA or E. coli bacteria could eventually be added to the list of Hospital Acquired Conditions that are no longer paid for by Medicare or Medicaid. Understaffing hospitals will become costly in the long run if the cost of treating Hospital Acquired Infections is no longer covered.

The best solution to improving infection control and reducing nurse workload is to increase staffing, but this solution is not always possible. Other solutions to reduce nurse burn-out and create a safer environment for infection control include:

1.       Implementing infection control programs for staff

With an increase in patient workload, the stress of caring for and monitoring patients on an on-going basis can overshadow basic infection control procedures like hand washing. Reminding nurses to pause during their busy day to observe infection control procedures through workshops or shift report reminders can have a lasting impact on patient safety and infection control protocol2.       Using technology to help reduce nurse workload

Fall-risk and wandering patients can put a strain on nurses. Using a bed-exit alarm can help reduce a nurse’s workload by alerting nurses to bed-exiting behaviour before a patient wanders or experiences an adverse event like a fall from bed. Hospitals should implement bed-exit alarms that reduce false alarms and alarm fatigue by resetting when a patient returns to bed, without the need for nurse intervention.

Similar technologies exist in many aspects of patient care and should be used when possible. Alleviating a nurse’s workload can increase the likelihood of following through on infection control procedures and creates a better atmosphere for nurse and patient safety.

3.       Using equipment that features anti-bacterial surfaces

Anti-bacterial surfaces can be a major component in reducing the spread of Hospital Acquired Infection. The hospital bed is a critical area to observe patient safety and infection control. Using anti-bacterial solutions within the hospital bed’s surface can eliminate most of the harmful bacteria that can cause infection. This line of defense against infection control can reduce the spread of MRSA and E. coli for a safer patient environment.

Hand washing is an important step in infection control, and special care needs to be taken to ensure nurses have the proper support to implement infection control measures. Creating a reduced workload and using tools that help address infection control, such as anti-bacterial surfaces, can make a considerable impact on patient safety and reduce your facility’s cost of treating Hospital Acquired Infections.

CHG Hospital Beds specializes in low hospital beds that are designed to prevent patient falls and related injuries within acute care environments. We are focused on patient and nurse safety and deliver innovative solutions to meet the needs of our customers.

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 References:

http://www.nursing.upenn.edu/chopr/Documents/Nurse%20staffing,%20burnout,%20and%20health%20care%20associated%20infection.pdf

http://www.nursezone.com/Nursing-News-Events/more-news/Study-Links-Nurse-Staffing-and-Burnout-to-Hospital-Infections_40308.aspx

 

What is a Low Hospital Bed?

What is a Low Hospital Bed?

 

You’ve read our 5 Reasons to Use a Low Hospital Bed (http://chgbeds.blogspot.ca/2012/07/5-reasons-to-use-low-hospital-bed.html ) and our follow-up, 5 More Reasons to Use a Low Hospital Bed ( http://chgbeds.blogspot.com/2012/08/5-more-reasons-to-use-low-hospital-bed.html ), but maybe you’re still wondering: what exactly is a low hospital bed?

With origins in the long-term care field, low hospital beds were created with fall prevention and patient safety in mind. Long-term care facilities realized that bed height was a major factor in patient falls and complications such as fractures, dislocations, and brain injuries, and created the low bed as a solution.

Later, hospitals began to implement their own fall prevention strategies for the aging population and new patient safety initiatives, “borrowing” the concept of the low bed.

The Low Hospital Bed Definition

Not every bed that can go high and low can be classified as a low hospital bed. For patient safety reasons, there is a height standard that hospital bed manufacturers must follow. A hospital bed that goes 15 inches low cannot be lumped into the same category as a bed that is 10 inches low to the ground – that extra 5 inches makes all the difference in low hospital beds.

The Hospital Bed Safety Workgroup, created by the FDA and a number of patient safety and national health care organizations, offers a definition to classify low hospital beds:

… The bed is considered “low” if, when the patient is sitting on the side of the bed with feet on the floor, the angle of the patient’s bent knees is 90 degrees or less.

Since the average female leg measures 15 inches from the knee to the foot, and the average male lower leg measures 16.3 inches, the mattress deck height of a hospital bed will need to be between 9 inches and 10.3 inches low to fit this definition. Low hospital beds must consider the height of the mattress, which is often 6 inches thick.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services simply considers the height of a low hospital bed to be between 8 -10 inches off the floor.

Standard hospital beds, at their lowest height, range from 15 inches to 22 inches. Though the extra 5 inches may not seem like much, studies show that a higher bed height can increase a patient’s risk of head and brain injuries from falls.

Low hospital beds are recommended by The Joint Commission, the FDA, and the VA National Center for Patient Safety as a top strategy to reduce patient fall injuries. The low height provides a safe resting height for patients and can minimize the risk of fall injuries such as fractures and dislocations. Patients who have experienced a fall in the past often feel more confident sleeping in a low hospital bed, which can reduce the risk of future falls.

Though typically recommended for use in cases when a patient is at risk of falls, low hospital beds can be used in any acute patient care area. Every patient can feel confident, comfortable and secure when resting at a low height.

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CHG Hospital Beds specializes in low hospital beds that are designed to prevent patient falls and related injuries within acute care environments. We are focused on patient and nurse safety and deliver innovative solutions to meet the needs of our customers.

Who Pays for Patient Falls?

As of October 2008, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will no longer pay for patient falls. The CMS ruled that hospitals and health care providers will no longer be reimbursed for preventable Hospital Acquired Conditions (HAC), which means that the CMS will not pay to treat conditions that were not present upon the patient’s admission.  CMS includes “Patient Falls” as one of 10 Hospital‐Acquired Conditions that is high cost, high volume, or both, and can reasonably be prevented through the application of Evidence Based Guidelines.

As a result, it is now the hospital’s responsibility to pay for resulting patient injuries, or required treatments, from a fall in a hospital setting.

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