title: Prevention strategies to reduce falls in psychiatric settings.
abstract: A Fall Committee was developed in response to an increase in the rate of falls by patients at a primarily behavioral health, urban teaching hospital in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The Fall Committee identified interventions to potentially lessen the number of patient falls and areas where documentation could be improved to better describe an incident in the medical record. The Fall Committee developed paperwork to be completed after each patient fall and made changes to the low fall risk and high fall risk treatment plans. This article describes the recommendations submitted by the Fall Committee and its subsequent implementation. Although not causational, the fall rate decreased after the recommendations of the Fall Committee were implemented; however, a recent rise in the fall rate was noted and attributed to higher patient acuity on the unit. The committee investigation into this issue highlighted the paucity of research in this field and the need for a streamlined, easy-to-use, behavioral health fall scale to more accurately judge the fall risk of patients in this specialized subset.
authors.affiliation: Crisis Response Center, Temple University Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19125, USA.
authors.forename: Yasser
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Al-Khatib
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Arnold
authors.forename: Lois
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Brautigam
authors.forename: Letty
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chan-Domingo
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gennello
authors.forename: Edgardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jaminola
authors.forename: Kate
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Meehan
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Modrzynski
authors.forename: Carolyn K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Nicolardi
authors.forename: L J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Rasi
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Stockton
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015984:Causality; D015897:Comorbidity; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006786:Hospitals, Urban; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000451:nursing* / Q000523:psychology; D009730:Nursing Assessment; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing; D018570:Risk Assessment; D017751:Safety Management / Q000379:methods*; D014481:United States