Preventing Falls in The Geriatric Population Assignment Sample

Evidence-Based Policy

Table of Contents

Introduction.

The rationale for managing quality and safety at the workplace.

Issues being addressed by the policy.

Ongoing monitoring.

Addressing issues.

Policy.

Conclusion.

References.

Introduction to Preventing Falls in The Geriatric Population

Health and safety policies are considered the fundamental right of workers while working in an organisation. Organisations may face significant controversies if effective policies and protocols for the safety of workers are not developed and implemented (Vincent & Amalberti, 2016). In the healthcare sector, medical and care professionals are required to undergo different scenarios and situations in which the health and safety of patients are to be ensured. For instance, falling incidents may present the need for extra care for the elderly by care professionals (Firstenberg & Stawicki, 2018). Therefore, aged care facilities and hospitals need to formulate quality and safety policies, which may enhance the workplace culture and atmosphere.

The purpose of this report is to develop an understanding of health and safety policies, which may be created by health service managers. There is immense focus on developing an evidence-based policy in this report, along with explaining its significance. Hence, the report describes the rationale for managing quality and safety at the workplace in healthcare organisations. Also, information about the issues, which could be addressed by the quality and safety policy, is mentioned in the report. Along with this, various aspects of the policy are also discussed, such as worker training, ongoing monitoring and many more. At last, the report also contains the quality and safety policy to be implemented in a hypothetical aged care facility.

The Rationale for Managing Quality and Safety at The Workplace

Development of health and safety policies for the elderly is highly necessary for organisations to operate effectively. Scenarios of falling of the patients may raise questions on the care providing efficiency of nurses and other healthcare professionals at the workplace (Cristian, 2012). Therefore, it is highly important in HSM practices to aged patients and elderly to develop and implement credible policies, which may reduce the incidents of falling. Also, there can be several impacts of falling on the physical and mental health of aged patients due to which managing quality and safety at the workplace become important to healthcare organisations.

It is found in many studies that patients who fall in aged care facilities may get seriously injured. In the worst-case scenario, the incident of falling may also result in the death of patients. One of the leading causes of falling in aged care is the ignorance by the care professionals (Zipperer, 2014). Most of the aged patients roam in healthcare facilities to seek some help or do some work. These works can be accomplished easily if aged people are assisted by nurses allocated to them. Therefore, it is essential in the aged care facilities to develop and implement effective policies and protocols, which may define the responsibilities of care professionals so that incidents of falling can be reduced in HSM practices. Hence, policies encouraging cognitive practices and behaviours need to be developed in healthcare organisations (Myers, 2011). In this manner, it can be said that managing quality and safety at the workplace has a high rationale in aged care facilities.

Issues Being Addressed by The Policy

There are several issues, which will be addressed by the policy developed for an aged care facility. These issues are presented in the following manner.

• The policy developed for the aged care facility will provide an absolute solution to the falling incidents, which are recorded timely. The policy will describe the roles and responsibilities of different nurses and healthcare professionals in the care homes (Youngberg, 2013). It can be analysed the nurses have specific duties in which they need to assist the old aged people with their daily work such as bathing, communication with nurses and many others. In this manner, implementation of the strict policies will allow the nurses to provide round the clock assistance, which may help in reducing the scenarios of falling.
• One of the leading issues, which will be addressed by the policy, is the enhancement in the understanding of care professionals about their roles. The policy required educating of the newly hired nurses by NUM and senior care professionals (Handley & Dodge, 2015). This way, there can be an atmosphere of high work ethics in the aged care facility as training and guidance provided by the senior professionals may help new employees to understand care providing tactics. This way, the efficiency of care can be improved within the care home, which may ultimately cut falling incidents.
• Care professionals may understand the reasons or situations in which elderly often fall by adopting the quality and safety policy. For example, walking on slippery floors, dim lights, high rise beds and many others can be acknowledged by the care professionals, and suitable precautionary actions can be taken at the time in the HSM practices (Lee, Wei & Khang, 2014). Hence, the policy may help in addressing the prominent issues related to falling can be reduced.

Ongoing Monitoring

Ongoing monitoring is the major issue, which will be addressed by the quality and safety policy, which is developed for the aged care facility. The policy will allow the care professionals and nurses to monitor the health of vulnerable aged patients round the clock, which will improve the quality of care (Tinetti & Kumar, 2014). At the same time, there will be an intense focus on evaluating the needs of the patients due to which they could leave their beds and might roam in different wards. Efforts made by the allocated nurses to meet the needs of patients may improve the quality of care and enhance ongoing monitoring. For this purpose, provisions for setting ringing bells nearby the beds of patients will also be considered. Patients may raise their concern by ringing the bell, which may improve their monitoring in the healthcare facility. Also, daily records about the health conditions and the needs of the patients will be managed. In this manner, appropriate training will be provided with the nurses and care providers.

Addressing Issues

Quality and safety policy, which has been developed for the aged care facility is likely to address the current issues in several ways. These ways of addressing the issues are explained below.

The policy will intensely focus on the training of the workers and healthcare staffs. Different NUM and senior employees are likely to acquire the consent of the management for knowledge transfer and training of the less experienced or newly hired nurses (Williams, 2019). In these training sessions, best practices related to care of the old aged patients so that they do not fall will be demonstrated. For this purpose, a variety of tools can be used in the facility for knowledge transfer and to generate proper understanding. These tools may include presentations, simulations and many others. Videos and images used in the presentation may allow the newly hired and less proficient nurses in the aged care facility to acknowledge the ways to assist patients (Youngberg, 2013). It is one of the best practices, which may significantly improve the efficiency of the working staffs in the aged care facility and reduce the scenarios of falling and other similar incidents.

Along with this, the quality and safety policy will also emphasise on the simulation programmes and sessions in the HSM practices. During the simulations, one of the amateur or less skilled nurses in the facility may act like an old patient seeking assistance from the staff (Tinetti & Kumar, 2014). At the same time, senior nurses or NUM may act as the nurse allocated for his care and assistance. These simulation sessions will demonstrate the real-time scenarios in which senior nurses may demonstrate how to communicate and help the old aged patient in the facility and prevent falling incidents. Hence, the policy will improve the quality of care as well as may ensure the safety of the patients; if appropriately implemented.

Policy

Definition

The quality and safety policy is being developed in HSM practices to enhance the quality of care for aged patients in the care home facility. The policy is to be implemented to provide assistance to patients by the professional nurses and reduce falling of patients and preventing them from getting injured. It is a set of guidelines and principles, which define the roles and responsibilities of different nurses in the context of patient-specific care.

Guiding principles

• All nurses and care professionals must assist the old aged patients in vulnerable conditions, which require intensive care and support. Nurses are required to prevent the scenarios in which patients leave their beds by themselves and move to other places in the care home.
• All nurses need to participate in the mandatory training sessions established in the aged care facility. Duration of the training is indefinite, which may run til; the required expertise is developed within the newly hired and less efficient nurses and care professionals.

Patient expectations

• Expectations and specific needs of all patients will be met in the aged care facility. Most of the patient expects to have nurses around them so that they can easily communicate their issues and needs, which can be addressed on time. This way, patients will not be required to leave their beds and roam around in the care home.
• Every time a patient needs something in the aged care facility; he or she will ask the allocated nurse or care professional for assistance.

Roles and responsibilities

• Different nurses and care professionals in the aged care facility will have to work in a different shift to provide round the clock assistance and care to patients. The nurses will be required to prepare a checklist of the duties performed by them and need to put efforts to meet all necessary responsibilities.
• Any issue or matter, which is beyond the duties and responsibilities of the nurses, will be communicated to the relevant official in the aged care facility.
• Nurses will be accountable for all activities about the in-bed care of patients so that scenarios of falling can be reduced.

Standards

• Nurses and care professionals need to provide standardised care to patients and scenarios of delays, and subpar care quality must be reduced. Different patients will be asked to rate the performance and quality of the care received by nurses and care professionals.
• Growth and sustainability of care professionals in the aged care facility will be decided according to his or her performance and quality.
• Safety perceived by patients will be a key parameter for evaluating the standard of care provided by nurses.

Clinical governance

• Reporting of different incidents occurring in the aged care facility will be essential to the nurses and different care providers. There must not be any case or incident, which goes unreported. Allocated nurses will be entirely responsible for the falling incidents in the care homes.
• Nurses must report to their team leaders or line managers about the causes of incidents and should ensure that incidents such as falling do not occur in future.
• There will be a keen focus on evaluating the causes behind the falling and other incidents in which care providers and nurses can be held responsible, which they are found negligent on their duties and roles.

Incident management

• All incidents about the fall and must be communicated to the health service manager in the aged care facility. The manager may take appropriate decisions according to the need of the situation.
• Scenarios of voluntary negligence and non-compliance with the terms and guidelines of the quality and safety policy may affect the remunerations and compensations received by care professionals and nurses.

Conclusion on Preventing Falls in The Geriatric Population

It can be concluded that quality and safety policy at the workplace may place an immense role in improving the care in the aged care facility. Different terms and provisions considered under the policy may allow the patients to acquire round the clock care due to which incidents of falling may decline in future. It is found that different issues related to the old aged care can be adequately addressed by implementing the policy such as constant monitoring, falling incidents and many more. For this purpose, the developed policy may comprise of different elements such as guidelines to nurses, description of roles and responsibilities and providing standard care and many more. The policy can be implemented within the aged care facility to manage the falling incidents tactfully.

References for Preventing Falls in The Geriatric Population

Cristian, A. (2012). Patient Safety in Rehabilitation Medicine, An Issue of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics - E-Book. USA: Elsevier Health Sciences

Firstenberg, ‎M. & Stawicki, S. (2018). Vignettes in Patient Safety. USA: IntechOpen

Handley, R. & Dodge, N. (2015). Can simulated practice learning improve clinical competence? The British Journal of Nursing, 22(9), 529-535

Lee, A., Wei, L., & Khang, P. (2014). Preventing falls in the geriatric population. The Permanente Journal, 17(4), 37–39.

Myers, S. (2011). Patient Safety and Hospital Accreditation A Model for Ensuring Success. Australia: Springer Publishing Company

Tinetti, M.E., & Kumar, C. (2014). The patient who falls: “It’s always a trade-off. JAMA.303(3), 258–66.

Vincent, ‎C. & Amalberti, R. (2016). Safer Healthcare Strategies for the Real World. Australia: Springer International Publishing

Williams, H. (2019). Preventing falls in older Australians. Retrieved from https://healthtimes.com.au/hub/aged-care/2/practice/hw/preventing-falls-in-older-australians/4462/

Youngberg, B. (2013). Patient Safety Handbook. USA: Jones & Bartlett Learning

Zipperer, L.·(2014). Patient Safety Perspectives on Evidence, Information and Knowledge Transfer. USA: Gower

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