Date of Conferral

2017

Degree

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

School

Nursing

Advisor

Dr. Diane Whitehead

Abstract

One and a half million people are currently living in residential care facilities; as the baby boomer generation ages, this number will increase to 3 million. Approximately 3 out of 4 residents of these facilities fall each year, and 10% to 20% of those falls result in serious injuries such as fractures, disability, and a decreased quality of living. The BOUNCE Back fall initiative is a multifactorial program that uses a systematic approach starting on admission and to re-evaluate a resident following a fall. Nursing and therapy uses the Morse Fall Scale and the Elderly Mobility Scale to assess and categorize the resident's risk for falls. Guided by Lewin's theory of change, this project was designed to assess the effectiveness of the fall initiative as a quality improvement 60-day (August 2016- September 2016) pilot study in a skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility as a potential means to reduce the number of resident falls. Sixty residents (aged 64 to 98, mean age 81) were assessed at a minimum 2 time points to determine their level of fall risk and needed intervention, within 60 minutes of admission to the facility and 7 days postadmission. De-identified pre- and post-implementation data were provided from the corporate quality measure database, entered into a spreadsheet, and numbers were compared. As a result of the fall prevention pilot, for August 2016, 5 falls occurred with no repeat fallers; September 2016, 3 falls with 1 repeat faller which is a significant decrease from 14-22 falls occurring per month for 2 consecutive years. Following implementation, the facility scored 3%-5% for the number of falls, which is below the 7% threshold set forth by the pilot facility's corporate office. Prior to the implementation of the initiative, the facility had not met the 7% fall threshold in 2 years

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