Patient/Organisational issue: Inpatient Falls
Falls in inpatient setups are among the most common cases in healthcare facilities. It is documented that 30-50% of the falls result in a physical injury of the patients and psychological impacts (Turner et al., 2020). Other causes of falls include:
- Increased patient hospitalization.
- Loss of body function due to damage of a certain organ.
- The increased cost of care.
- Increased patient mortality rates (Reiter-Palmon et al., 2018; Stubbs & Sikes, 2017).
Fall prevention in the facility requires interdisciplinary collaboration and the implementation of evidence-based interventions.
The absence of falls will mean increased patient satisfaction and better facility branding due to the quality care offered and reduced cost of care.
Relevance of Interdisciplinary Team Approach
The multidisciplinary approach is quite essential in fall prevention. The common disciples required in this plan include physicians, nurses, IT professionals, biomedical engineering team, physiotherapists, finance and accounting professionals. All these have a direct or indirect impact on fall prevention. The interdisciplinary approach ensures the extensive analysis of patient risks hence classifying them and providing appropriate fall prevention interventions.
Additionally, the approach ensures a teamwork approach, with each person receiving roles based on their abilities. Selection of the based EBP approach requires brainstorming while weighing applicability and interventions with available resources. furthermore, the approach ensures effective evaluation of interventions and patient satisfaction monitoring (Bursiek et al., 2020).
Interdisciplinary Plan
Identifying the probable cause of falls in the inpatient unit is a vital component. This includes the identification and analysis of risk factors as well as the disciplines directly involved. This is necessary for making a targeted and evidence-based intervention approved and reviewed by all the involved professions (Reiter-Palmon et al., 2018; Turner et al., 2020). Additionally, each stakeholder needs to receive roles to engage them and reduce the workload for each stakeholder. Implementation of the chosen intervention will start at a small scale with the chosen interdisciplinary leaders. This will allow for easy monitoring and evaluation of outcomes. Redesigning will be easy when the interventions are done on a small scale (Reiter-Palmon et al., 2018; Stubbs & Sikes, 2017). The success of the proposed intervention will give room for systemwide incorporation
The selection of appropriate and budget-friendly intervention is a key process of this plan. Additionally, by involving different disciplines, teamwork mentally and better communication is to be instilled among participants. Cost of care and reduction of patient mortality due to falls is an expected outcome of the project. The chances of success are high since most studies indicate that a multidisciplinary approach works that the application of only nurse-centred care.
Activities to be conducted by the interdisciplinary Team
The interdisciplinary team will carry out the major processes of the project. This will begin with the identification of the cause of the falls. Additionally, they will do intense research to identify affordable and applicable interventions based on patient risk factors. A risk assessment will also be done to prevent chances of failure. They will also implement the interventions and evaluate outcomes. Any possible change will be made by them, thus allowing for systemwide incorporation.
Implementation and Resource Management
The team will only involve the team leaders from each profession to ensure that others continue their duties. Additionally, data collection will involve less costly methodologies like observation. Systemwide incorporation will be the last aspect meaning that randomized sampling of the patients will be done during the implementation of the interventions. This helps prevent excess costs that may be incurred, and it also gives room for redesigning in case of failure. The selection of interventions will involve the available and open-source scientific journals. Additionally, existing software like excel will be used in analysis and evaluation. Involving the finance team and other disciplines will ensure that none of the selected interventions exceeds the allocated budget.
Evaluation
After implementing the interventions, it is vital to understand the plan’s progress before its systemwide adoption. This can only be possible through analysis of the outcomes (observational studies). Response from the patients and patient attendants will help determine the satisfactory levels of stakeholders. Additionally, a comparative analysis of the number of falls recorded will help in the evaluation process (simple before and after analytical studies). This will be easier since the primary participants will be placed in separate rooms from nonparticipants (Randomized control design) (Bursiek et al., 2020; Turner et al., 2020).
Conclusion
Falls among hospitalized patients are quite common, and their outcomes are usually catastrophic. This includes the increased cost of care and unintended patient outcomes, which may also include death. Solving the problem requires a multidisciplinary approach and selecting evidence-based interventions that meet do not result in financial constraints. However, attaining the desired outcome should be primary and ensure professionalism in the whole approach.
References
Bursiek, A. A., Hopkins, M. R., Breitkopf, D. M., Grubbs, P. L., Joswiak, M. E., Klipfel, J. M., & Johnson, K. M. (2020). Use of high-fidelity simulation to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration and reduce patient falls. Journal of Patient Safety, 16(3), 245–250.
Reiter-Palmon, R., Kennel, V., Allen, J., & Jones, K. J. (2018). Good catch! Using interdisciplinary teams and team reflexivity to improve patient safety. Group & Organization Management, 43(3), 414–439.
Stubbs, K. E., & Sikes, L. (2017). Interdisciplinary approach to fall prevention in a high-risk inpatient pediatric population: Quality improvement project. Physical Therapy, 97(1), 97–104.
Turner, K., Staggs, V., Potter, C., Cramer, E., Shorr, R., & Mion, L. C. (2020). Fall prevention implementation strategies in use at 60 United States hospitals: A descriptive study. BMJ Quality & Safety, 29(12), 1000–1007. Web.