Fall Prevention Strategies in Hospitals - Essay Example

"Fall Prevention Strategies in Hospitals" is a wonderful example of a paper on care. Nursing care is involved with both long- and short-term care of patients of old ages. The main aim of nursing is to help improve healthcare outcomes. Healthcare goals include relief from pain, reduction, and elimination of symptoms, and improvement of the quality of life. In long-term care, it is most difficult to achieve these goals when patients fall for one reason. These falls may range in severity, but most of them aggravate pain symptoms in the patients (Growdon, Shorr & Inouye, 2017).
Statement of Problem
In a hospital facility, we have both inpatients and outpatients. Inpatients have to stay in the hospital for a recommended period before they are discharged. While at the hospital, it is the nursing professionals' responsibility to ensure that the safety and well-being of these patients are considered. A major hindrance to the achievement of healthcare goals is the falling that happens in hospitals. Mostly prevalent among long-term care patients aged 65 years and above, falls may negatively impact the well-being of the patients (Hamada et al., 2020). To ensure that there is improved quality of life for such patients, we have to devise strategies that will help prevent falls in the hospitals.
Context of the problem
According to prior research done, most of the falls that happen in the hospital happen to long-term care patients. For one reason or another, these are patients who, under the recommendation of the doctors, have been admitted for a specified period. These patients are normally admitted for close supervision to achieve certain healthcare goals before they can be discharged. Most falls are prevalent among the older population and frequent bedsides and bathrooms more than other locations in the hospital (Aranda-Gallardo et al., 2018).
High-level Description of the Problem
The primary goal of nursing is the improvement of the healthcare goals of their patients. Long-term patients are admitted to hospitals for closer supervision. This means that their conditions are relatively more serious than that of the outpatients. Falls occurring in the hospital setup may be a barrier to the achievement of healthcare goals. Depending on the severity of the falls, some may permanently damage the patient (Morris & O’Riordan, 2017). Strategies must be employed to reduce falls from happening.
Some of the causes of falls in the hospital include orthostatic hypotension (Munshi et al., 2016), hypnotics use that causes depression and pain in the patients, polypharmacy of the patient's medication, gait, clutter in the room, poor lighting, loose clothing and shoes among others. Most of the falls that have been reported in the hospitals are frequently reported at the bedside, in t5he bathroom, or while toileting. Understanding the causes of the falls enables us to devise strategies that will mitigate these causes and thus improve the healthcare outcomes of the patients.
Effect of Falls
Falls may have a variety of impacts on the healthcare of the patient. When falls happen to older patients, it could result in physical damage of their bodies that could be permanent. Depending on the fall severity, some falls may lead to internal bleeding, dislocation of the hips and bones, swelling, chronic pain, and even death (Gu et al., 2016). All of these impacts work to deteriorate healthcare goals in a patient.


Significance of the topic and its implications in Nursing
Nursing is concerned with the improvement of the healthcare goals of patients. Falls, on the other hand, work to deteriorate the healthcare outcomes of the patients. A study of fall prevention strategies in patients is important because it provides insights on the best solutions to this problem (Stephenson et al., 2016). Solutions to the problem will help patients recover faster and achieve their healthcare goals more easily. This improves the quality of life of the patients. This study is significant to nursing as a profession because it provides insights to the nurses on promoting the healthcare objectives of patients. An understanding of prevention strategies improved the quality of life and continued achievement of overall healthcare goals.
Proposed solutions
Some of the proposed solutions to falling coincide with the causes of falling. A review of the blood sugar and blood pressure of patients is important to prevent orthostatic hypotension. Gradual reduction of psychoactive and hypnotic drug doses is also a proposed solution (Hamada et al., 2020). Other solutions include improvement of night lighting, provision of nonskid shoes and socks that are well-fitting, regular checking of patients with toileting issues and help in ambulating them, use of gowns instead of pajamas and, removal of unnecessary clatter and bed adjustments are some of the reconciliation strategies to reduce falls in the hospital (Dhargave & Sendhilkumar, 2016). The proposed solutions will help nurses effectively administer their duties wholly while fully focusing on improving healthcare outcomes.