Authors (including presenting author) :
TSE YL(1), NG TW(1), CHEUNG HL(1), CHAN CC(1), YIP KT(1), LAM SL(1), CHIANG KH(1)
Affiliation :
Physiotherapy Department, Shatin Hospital
Introduction :
Elderly fall could happen in physiotherapy (PT) department and it is one of the top risks in Hospital Risk Registry. Effective fall prevention program helps us to manage those high fall risk elderlies to prevent fall incident happened.
Objectives :
1. To review current procedure in management of fall risk patient when receiving training in PT department. 2. To improve staff knowledge and awareness in management of high fall risk patient in PT department 3. To ensure staff to follow our recommendations on improvement measures and implementation of fall prevention strategies in PT department. 4. To decrease occurrence rate of fall incident in PT department.
Methodology :
1. To review and analyze PT-COC past fall incident report data. 2. To review relevant fall prevention guidelines in Cluster PT departments. 3. To implement fall prevention program according to improvement strategies, including fall prevention educational training to all staff, fall risk patient identification, labelling and safety measures used, as well as fall prevention educational video target to patient. 4. To conduct surprise audit on staff compliance on fall prevention strategies. 5. To evaluate staff and patient feedback on fall prevention program by questionnaire.
Result & Outcome :
1. The occurrence rate of fall incident showed downward trend from 3 cases in 2015 to 0 case in 2018. 2. The compliance of staff to follow the recommendations on management of high fall risk patient was audited. The department overall compliance rate was 98.33%. The sub-score on patient identification was 96.67%, patient labelling was 98.15% and, use of safety measures to manage the fall risk patient was 100%. 3. Fall prevention and management program evaluation questionnaire to staff was conducted. Staff comment on i) the procedure of screening of all risk patient, ii) the newly applied safety measure on fall prevention and iii) the objectives of the CQI program rated 97% to 100% agreed. 4. Fall prevention educational training to patient was conducted. 80 questionnaires were collected and evaluated. Patient comment showed that 70% to 95% strongly satisfy on the fall prevention educational video training. Conclusion: Fall prevention and management program in PT department was effective in reducing fall incidents and improve patient safety. Ongoing data collection and review of improvement strategies will be conducted for continuous improvement in enhancing patient safety.
