One out of every five falls causes an injury like broken bones or a head injury. In the nursing home, people have increased risks of falls because of the wide number of elderly there in different states of health.
People 65 and older face the highest risk of falls that will cause traumatic brain injuries and hip fractures. Either one of these things can worsen a person’s health condition. That begs the question, “What can nursing homes do to prevent falls?”
Steps You Can Take to Keep Residents Safe
Taking the following measures can lower your facility’s rate of accidents. Having a good safety record is beneficial to the home’s residents and to your company’s reputation, so it’s worth making the effort.
#1: Have Good Lighting
Installing good lighting ensures that residents don’t trip because they couldn’t see where they were going. Good lighting can make the place feel happier. It reduces the risk that someone says that they tripped due to poor lighting in the nursing home.
#2: Beware of the Side Effects of Medications
Taking certain types of medications will put someone at a higher risk of falling. Sedatives, hypnotics, benzodiazepines, and antidepressants all have the potential to cause falls. Knowing which residents take these medications and keeping a close eye on them can lower the risk.
#3: Don’t Allow Hard-to-Manage Clothing
One of the common culprits of falls comes from wearing hard-to-manage clothing. Nurses and staff should remain alert to people who wear clothing like this. While it may sound strict to not allow certain types of clothing, it exists to protect the residents.
#4: Keep Personal Items Accessible
You must keep personal items accessible. Residents often suffer a fall because they were reaching for a hard-to-reach item, bending over, or stretching down to pick something up. As much as possible, you want to eliminate putting personal items in risky places where a resident might harm themselves.
Reducing falls in the nursing home comes from a coordinated effort on everyone’s part. Taking precautionary measures to lower the number of falls will help to reduce your liability, as well.
Since these accidents can cost millions of dollars, you don’t want to open yourself to liability. For an idea of how much your facility could lose in a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit, take a look at these verdicts & settlements.
Be aware of the residents who have the most likelihood of falling and keep a special eye on them. Having an individual care plan like this helps you to look out for those most at risk.
Alarming Statistics
Over a year, 50 to 75 percent of nursing home residents will suffer a fall. Many of the falls don’t get reported. Some nursing home residents will fall more than one time per year, which increases your risk of liability.
To show you why you need to take this seriously, in Florida, one nursing home suffered the fall of a resident who passed away because of their injuries, which led to a successful $1.1 billion verdict. The jury awarded $110 million in compensatory damages, and the nursing home had to pay $1 billion in punitive damages.
How to Design an Effective Fall Management Program
Having an effective fall management program can help you lower the risk of liability. There are five steps required to create an effective fall management program:
- Put together an interdisciplinary team
- Assess the injuries and causes
- Analyze what happened to prevent it in the future
- Have a falls CSI
- Conduct follow-ups with the patients
Designing an effective fall management program will lower its number of cases. While you may not stop falls from happening entirely, you can decrease how many may happen on your property.
