National Patient Safety Goals | Paper

Running head: NATIONAL PATIENT SAFETY GOALS
NATIONAL PATIENT SAFETY GOALS
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NATIONAL PATIENT SAFETY GOALS1
Introduction
The National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) have been formulated by the Joint
Commission (2019) for the purpose of improve the safety and quality of clinical interventions
delivered across healthcare organizations. The following paper will briefly discuss on the
importance, purpose and targeted area of improvement with regards to NPSG Goal 9, that is,
‘NPSG.09.02.01: Reduce the risk of falls’.
Discussion
Importance of the Goal
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2019) has recently reported that
one out of every four elderly individual aged 65 years or above, have been evidenced to
encounter a fall annually in the United States. Approximately 30, 000 deaths with falls as a key
contributor have been reported across the elderly (CDC, 2019). Falls pave the way for injuries,
risk of permanent loss of movement and hip fractures, which further impair emotional, social,
physiological and psychological wellbeing in the elderly and also pave way for the extensive
medical expenditures. There is hence a need to establish standards targeting the reduction of falls
related incidences and risks of falls in order to prevent the above health and financial
consequences, which thus makes this NPSG important (Burns, Stevens & Lee, 2016). The
healthcare settings targeted by NPSG.09.02.01 of Goal 9, comprise of nursing care centers and
home care settings (Joint Commission, 2019).
Purpose
The purpose of Goal 9 is to establish healthcare organizational standards targeting
reductions in the risk of harms acquired as a result of falls across the elderly. The purpose of