WGU C229: Social Media Campaign on Fall Prevention in Older Adults

This project outlines a comprehensive social media campaign aimed at preventing falls among the elderly population. The campaign's objective is to increase patient safety and quality of life by raising awareness of fall prevention measures. It analyzes the evidence-based practices associated with this topic, highlighting the risk factors such as age-related health deterioration and environmental hazards. The project proposes two population-focused social marketing interventions, leveraging social media platforms like Facebook to disseminate information on fall prevention strategies, health services, and emergency assistance. The plan includes a detailed implementation strategy, defining stakeholder roles, potential partnerships, a six-month timeline, and evaluation methods to measure the campaign's effectiveness. It also addresses the cost of implementation and reflects on how social media marketing supports community health nurses in promoting healthier populations. References to relevant research and guidelines are provided to support the campaign's approach.

Community health and population nursing experience
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Statement:
Studies have showed that the older adult population has increased fall risk, leading to the
significant surge in their hospital admissions as well as medical complications contributing to
their mortality rate. Statistics show that over 2.8 million fall injuries of the elder population get
treated in the emergency wards of hospitals worldwide. About 30% - 50% of the falls result in
the injuries which are minor, such as abrasions, bruises or lacerations, however, about 10% of
the estimated fallsare due to major injuries like factures of femur, hips and pelvis as well as
intracranial injuries (Dellinger, 2017). About 27,000 of the older adult fall population result in
deaths.Factors which increase the risk factors include diseases like diabetes, heart diseases,
thyroid problems, issues regarding nerves and cognitive senses, which can cause loss of balance
in older adults (Rubenstein, 2006). The primary goal of this social media campaign is to
successfully reduce this population by encouraging in the implementation of effective preventive
measures or aiding the population suffering from severity of the results of these falls. Thus to
limit the incidence of preventable falls, the National Falls Prevention Resource Center of United
States suggest fall proofing residences, providing caregivers, increasing the amount of group
homes, creating awareness about the importance of physiotherapy, incorporating new and
improved technologies to help locate elderly resident in need, as well as assistive technology
programs. However, one of the most important barriers of both receiving treatment and for the
implementation of preventive measures of falls is the cost or expenditure of these processes.
Thus, with the increasing elder population, this issue has become a growing concern.

Evidence based practice associated with field experience topic:
The risk factors resulting in the increase of these fall incidents are with the increase in
age, either due to natural health deterioration or as a side effect of increased medical use, leading
to cognitive impairment, loss of balance, nervous disorders, which can be seen to contribute
largely to the increased incidence of falls, among the elderly. With the increase in the older adult
population of the world, there has been a significant increase in the number of hospital
admissions due to falls, both fatal and non-fatal (Kamińska, Brodowski&Karakiewicz, 2015).
However, apart from personal risk factors like physical fitness, mental wellbeing, nourishment,
sleeping pattern as well as cognitive status, there are also environmental risk factors like unsafe
or potentially hazardous public as well as residential places having slippery surfaces, lack of
railings, and more (Harris, 2018).
The disparity in the access to healthcare services increases the gap between the
populations. The preventive measures as well as the treatment procedure, has been known to
extremely high costs. Statistics highlight that about more than $750 million is spent behind
treating and curing the patients suffering from fatal falls, each year. The costs have been known
to rise further in the recent years to come, if certain measures are not taken to prevent it
completely (Riley, 2012). Initiatives like medical coverage set up by the government, such as
Medicaid and Medicare, has been able to successfully narrow the gap of disparity within the
elderly population, by enabling people belonging to the lower socio-economic group access to
advanced and expensive healthcareprocedures (Yamada, 2015).This surge in the success rates of
these health insurances has in turn increased patient trust, safety as well as satisfaction and
improved patient outcome as well as quality of life. Thus, these public as well as private
initiatives are very crucial in the overall improvement in the health of the given

population.However, one of the barriers of this system is the lack of awareness of these
government provided benefits that the economically backward population can incorporate in
their health care plan to significantly reduce and efficiently manage their hospital admission
charges (Burn, Stevens & Lee, 2016).
Evidence-based practice associated with Field Experience topic
Evidence-based practice interventions recommended by the national review conducted by
the Department of Health (2019) for the prevention of falls across the elderly include, exercise,
patient education, organizational incident reporting and practice improvement and community
health promotion frameworks to name a few.
Community health nursing social media campaign strategy:
Social media campaign objective
The main objective of this campaign is to increase patient safety, and their quality of life,
in order to decrease the morbidity and mortality rates, by efficiently preventing the incidence of
falls that could result in both fatal as well as non-fatal injuries by increasing awareness about the
different preventive measures that can be implemented.
Two population-focused social marketing interventions
Social media has become the most useful platform used to spread important messages
and the healthcare providers have used it from time to time to reach out to their patients. This
platform not only helps the healthcare professionals to build useful networks with your peers but
also allows them to educate the community regarding the different health concerns.
For this subject, the two most important social media strategies would be to:

Promote awareness about this topic :( Patient care)
The most useful characteristics of social media is its ability to spread important messages
to a wider group of people. The healthcare sector has been an avid user of the facilities of social
media, promoting and creating awareness about different health issues, including the increase in
the fall rates of the older adult population. Social media is often used to advertise regarding the
different non-pharmacological interventions, for the prevention of falls in the elderly like
exercise, assistive technology or tools like walkers, nutritional therapy, reviewing of their
medication list. Creating awareness about this not only helps in the identification of the section
of the older adult population, more prone to falls, but also helps advertise the interventions or
healthcare services available for the prevention and treatment of falls. This also promotes the
importance of home safety assessments to help safe proof the residence of older people living
alone and those who are a high risk of falling.
Promote health services with social media: (Patient education)
Apart from creating awareness, social media serves as a platform for promoting health
services and providing helplines to help in the time of fatal falls requiring immediate medical
attention (Piscotty et al., 2015). The most useful characteristics about any social media platform,
is that it can facilitate a two-way conversation or interaction. This can help provide assistance to
the elderly population, after suffering from a fall or witnessing one.
Social Media Platform to be used
A common social media platform which will be used is the creation of a specialised
online webpage of the issue or the healthcare organization addressing the issue, where
information on falls prevention and associated healthcare interventions will be demonstrated via

blogs and articles posted online. Additional, community-based social media platforms like
Facebook would also be a key social media platform to disseminate concise, quick and catchy
information on falls prevention to a large number of people within a limited time (Klassen et al.,
2018).
Social media platform &its benefits
Thus, in conclusion, social media is not only used in the production of awareness about
the issue, but also provides a platform which can be used when the requirement of medical
assistance is crucial, especially in fatal falls, in order to reduce fall mortality in the older adult
population (Ventola, 2014).
How the target population will benefit the health message:
The desired outcome of this campaign is to contribute in the reduction of the incidence of
fall, injuries, and chances of immobility as well as injury in the target older adult population. The
target population or their family members can use this knowledge to help in the reduction of
hospital admissions and mortality rates sue to fatal falls.
Describe best practices for implementing social media tools for health marketing
Social media creates a platform to help devise effective healthcare plans to provide
assistance during any emergencies like fatal falls.
Social media campaign implementation plan:
1. Stakeholder roles and responsibilities in implementing the plan

PrimaryStakeholders: The primary stakeholders of this program are the target population
– older adult population and their family members and concerned friends.
Secondary Stakeholders: The secondary stakeholders are managers, partners, program
staffs, funding agencies and the coalition members (Cdc.gov, 2019). They can financially
support the program by arranging funds and interested sponsors. For this social media campaign,
the secondary stakeholders are also the social media and social networking service companies
who will help in spreading the message accurately and to a wider population.
They can also help to implement a social media campaign for an open discussion for
patient safety, increase the quality of life, decrease falls and prevent injury.
2. Potential public and private partnerships that can aid in campaign implementation
Potential public and private partnerships include foreign, government and third party
investors. These can help in promoting better quality of care, improves the quality of life of
patients, reduce unnecessary surgeries and reduce the overall cost. They can further help in
funding this program and improve the development process of the campaign.
3. Specific timeline
Specific timeline helps in proper implementation of the plan and make it more effective.The
time required for this project would be 6 months, for the social campaign to reach its goal
accurately and effectively.
4. Evaluation of effectiveness of campaign

It improves the quality of care, reduce falls, promote better staffing, encourages more
cooperation and teaching education and reinforcement and decrease the surgeries that are
associated with falls.
5. Cost of implementation
The cost should be planned to facilitate better staffing, allow for more PCT and more
meaningful rounding and also facilitate the implementation of chair and bed alarm. The cost
of successfully implementing this social media campaign can be evaluated by the primary
and secondary costs required. The primary cost would include the funds required to set up the
campaign, advertisements as well as the social media and technological requirements. The
secondary cost would include funds and services required for implementing the campaign
effectively. Considering the set timeline, it is very difficult to accurately evaluate the cost of
implementation of the whole campaign, however, the increased primary cost would take an
estimated amount of $150,000 and for implementation, and it might require a cost of about
$20,000.
Reflect on how social media marketing supports the community health nurse’s efforts to
promote healthier populations (Reflection on social media campaign):
Social Media marketing helps the community nurse in promoting a healthier and sober
population by expressing the words into the community through advertisements. The social
media campaign are applied to the nursing practice as it allows the nurses to be an advocate
member in the community. It helps in creating awareness about the health issues and the ways to
implement the intervention strategies in order to promote health outcome and increase the quality
of care. The social media networking sites have been found to be the most effective tool as they

have the potential to increase the efficiency of health services like research, surveillance and
communication (Capurro et al., 2014).

References
Burns, E. R., Stevens, J. A., & Lee, R. (2016). The direct costs of fatal and non-fatal falls among
older adults—United States. Journal of safety research, 58, 99-103.
Capurro, D., Cole, K., Echavarría, M. I., Joe, J., Neogi, T., & Turner, A. M. (2014). The use of
social networking sites for public health practice and research: a systematic review.
Journal of medical Internet research, 16(3), e79.
Cdc.gov, (2019). Program Evaluation Guide - Step 1 - CDC. [online] Cdc.gov. Available at:
https://www.cdc.gov/eval/guide/step1/index.htm [Accessed 25 Aug. 2019].
Dellinger, A. (2017). Older adult falls: effective approaches to prevention. Current trauma
reports, 3(2), 118-123.
Department of Health. (2019). Falls prevention activities for older people: a national stocktake.
Retrieved 31 August 2019, from
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Harris, M. A. (2018). The relationship between physical inactivity and mental wellbeing:
Findings from a gamification-based community-wide physical activity
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3406-3416.

Klassen, K. M., Borleis, E. S., Brennan, L., Reid, M., McCaffrey, T. A., & Lim, M. S. (2018).
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