Falls Scale for Inpatient Care
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The current risk assessment tool used to screen adult inpatients at Parkview Health considers six domains to determine a patient’s fall risk score. Based upon this score, each patient is categorized as a low, moderate, or high risk for falls. Each of these risk levels has a list of predefined nursing interventions that are then added to the plan of care resulting in a "blanket" approach to fall prevention. This current process lacks an individualized approach, reduces nursing autonomy, and may at times lend to noncompliance with the pre-defined interventions. In addition, metrics demonstrate a trending increase in both falls and falls with harm throughout the system.
For this reason, Parkview Nursing set out to develop an evidence-based assessment tool that guides the nurse in identifying fall risk factors while also leveraging what is known of today’s complex healthcare environment. Nursing partnered with the Parkview Mirro Center for Research and Innovation to assist them in designing and carrying out studies to establish the reliability, usability, and validity of the newly developed falls scale.
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