Falls Prevention Education Among Elderly Patients

NURS2006 ASSIGNMENT 5
Clinical Practice Improvement Project Report
Student Name, FAN and ID:
(Student details)
Project Title:
Falls prevention education among elderly patient during and after hospitalization
Project Aim:
This Project aims to provide concise strategies, educational interventions, and plans which is
necessary to address so that fall related episodes among elderly people before and after their
discharge could be prevented within 6 months of time and will be compared to their understanding
of this situation at the commencement of application of intervention. The project interventions or
strategies are relevant as it is feasible to apply those in geriatric ward for fall prevention education.
Relevance of Clinical Governance to your project
Clinical Governance is the aspect, which helps to promote upgradation of healthcare service by
reviewing, promoting, measuring and monitoring the quality of care which is received by patients. It
compares the existing standards or interventions with the modified versions so that the
improvement and upgradation could be understood and continuous improvement to the quality of
service could be achieved (Heyrani et al. 2012). In this project related to fall prevention education
among elderly people while receiving care or after their research, importance of two pillars of
clinical governance could be identified and these are participation of stakeholders and clinical risk
management. This is because to prevent fall among elderly people, it is important to provide them
with details about the risk, the lethality of the risk and ways using which their fall episodes could be
prevented (Dalton 2012). On the other hand, it is also important to improve or enhance the quality
of the healthcare process and provides a coordinated approach to the educational or intervention
related strategies which are to be implemented to prevent fall among elderly people before or after
their discharge from the facility (Heyrani et al. 2012). Further, these two pillars emphasizes on equal
participation of patients or elderly population with that of care professionals to determine that the
risk of fall could be prevented among elderly people (Ravaghi et al. 2013).
Evidence that the issue / problem is worth solving:
As per the reports of World Health Organisation (2018), fall is the second primary reason for

accidental or unintentional injury which leads to death among older population as the older
generation suffers primarily due to the fatal effects of fall. Reports further determine that 37.3
million falls were reported all over the world which were severe and required immediate medical
attention. As per the reports of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2018), fall is the primary
reason for injury related death among elderly population and the rate increased from 31% to 61.6%.
as per the Australian Statistics provided by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2017), the
year 2012-13 witnesses more than 98,000 fall related cases within which 26% was for elder
population who experienced fall and more than 72% falls were recorded in healthcare facilities or
patient residence.
With increased age the risk of fall also increases, as it has been seen that after the age of 60,
functional abilities tend to decrease due to which people are unable to fulfil their activities of daily
life and suffers from the risk of falling. Further falls also decreases the abilities of people to perform
physical exercises, their mobility and increases their dependency on others.
Key Stakeholders:
Key stakeholders involved in the planning, implementation, evaluation and determination of
strategies related to fall prevention among elderly population is Australia are divided among two
sections, primary and secondary stakeholders. Primary stakeholders are directly involved in the
process such as governmental departments, healthcare professionals and patients, whereas
secondary stakeholders involves non-governmental organisations, communities, occupational
therapists and physiotherapists. The role of primary stakeholders to regulate the norms and upgrade
them so that elderly people with severe risk of fall could be provided with educational or
intervention related strategies so that episodes of fall could be prevented. Whereas, the role of
secondary stakeholders is to provide support and accepting the interventions so that
implementation of regulations related fall prevention could be properly implemented.
CPI Tool:
This project chooses and implements the Plan-Do-Study-Act or the PDSA model which aims to
decrease the fall episodes in elderly patients in healthcare facilities of Australia within 6 months of
period (Sutterfield and Daramola 2016). For This purpose, the PDSA model involves two important
strategies such as improving communication within healthcare facilities and professionals so that the
strategies and ideas could be transferred from one person to another. This CPI tool is an application
based tool which helps to identify the problem and then determines and provides ideas and
strategies using which the problems could be overcome (Gabrielian et al. 2013). One of the primary
things which should be remembered while using PDSA a CPI tool should be completed within the

relative pace and should encourage the momentum of the acceptance of the interventions (Farrar
2015). The primary reason, due to which PDSA is successful in implementing the change it requires,
is its narrower focusing and quick implementation strategy which helps to develop the continuous
improvement for work (Siracuse et al. 2012).
To prevent fall among elderly population of Australia before and after their hospital stay, it is
important that they are aware of the fall related risks, the strategies of fall management and the
severe implication of fall in their health so that fall could be prevented (Sutterfield and Daramola
2016). as the CG pillars chosen for the project focuses on the implication of involvement of
stakeholders in the intervention and managing the risk of clinical risk of fall within the healthcare
facility so that people with severe risk of fall could be provided with intervention to protect them of
fall episodes (Klee et al. 2012).
Application of this tool could easily implement the interventions which can prevent fall in elderly
people after their discharge. Implementation of healthcare education related intervention requires
the healthcare professionals to plan, do action, study or evaluate the positive and negative aspects
and then act as per the requirement of the patients for the fall prevention process (Klee et al. 2012).
Due to this purpose, it helps to achieve a specific measurement and assesses the difference in a
specific time so that the effectiveness of the intervention could be determined. As per Cameron et
al. (2012), planning is an important part of the patient education and training session as without
proper planning of the session patients are unable to understand the implication of the
interventions. Therefore, this CPI tool will be implemented in the project for fall prevention among
elderly population after their discharge (Sutterfield and Daramola 2016).
Summary of proposed interventions:
The interventions which will be used in case of fall prevention among elderly population could be
divided in two sections, educational intervention and adaptive interventions (Inouye, Westendorp
and Saczynski 2014). In case of educational intervention, elderly patients, who are at severe risk of
fall, are provided with educational sessions and trainings so that all the risk related to fall or
circumstances which can lead to fall could be shared with the patients (Gillespie et al. 2012). Further,
the strategic intervention such as taking help of healthcare professionals, using the walker provided
by the healthcare professionals for their mobility or taking their each step properly should be
mentioned in the strategies so that each smaller and bigger risks could be avoided (Siracuse et al.
2012). On the other hand, they should be provided with physical exercise instructions such as cardio
exercises, walking, jogging so that they can enhance their mobility and prevent fall related episodes
(Gillespie et al. 2012).