INQRI Fall Prevention Toolkit Available

In 2007, an INQRI research team led by Patti Dykes and Blackford Middleton was funded to create a tool designed to prevent patient falls by translating an individual patient's fall risk assessment into a decision support intervention that communicates fall risk status, and creates a tailored plan that is accessible to care team members (including patients and family members) to prevent falls.

With INQRI support, the team constructed the Fall Prevention Toolkit (FPTK), and conducted a randomized controlled trial to examine whether the FPTK led to a decrease in the incidence of patient falls and a decrease in the incidence of patient falls with injury. The use of their toolkit did significantly lower the incidence of falls in the intervention units and several units wished to continue using the tool after the conclusion of the study. By establishing links between nursing fall risk assessment, risk communication and tailored interventions to prevent falls, Dykes and Middleton hope to raise awareness of fall risks for patients, nurses and other providers and to lower mortality and morbidity for potential fall victims.  This toolkit is now available.

Click here to access the toolkit.

NICHE Expands Web-Based Toolkits

Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders (NICHE) announced an expansion of its portfolio of Organizational Strategies, a series of web-based toolkits designed to supply support for the NICHE programs in place at NICHE-member hospitals. According to NICHE, the toolkits provide comprehensive guidance in the development of key initiatives within hospital organizations that ensure continuing improvement in the care of older adults and sustained geriatric program growth.

Click here to read an article about this toolkit from Advance for Nurses.
Click here to access tools developed and tested by INQRI grantees.

INQRI Project Announced as First AACN PEARL

Congratulations to the INQRI researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center whose project on implementing the ABCDE bundle at the bedside was selected as the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses' first PEARL (Practice, Evidence, Application, Resources and Leadership) web-based tool.

This project focuses on preventing complications in mechanically ventilated patients through use of the "Awakening and Breathing Coordination, Delirium assessment and management and Early Exercise and progressive mobility (ABCDE)" bundle.

For more information on the PEARL program, please click here.

For more information on the INQRI project, please click here.

Use of INQRI Team's Fall Prevention Tool Kit Reduces Rate of Falls

Yesterday, INQRI researcher Patricia C. Dykes, R.N., D.N.Sc. (Partners HealthCare System, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston) presented on "How to Reduce the Risk of Falls for Older Patients in Hospitals" at the National Press Club as part of a Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Theme Issue Media Briefing on Aging.  Dykes and her team were published in today's edition of JAMA with their paper, "Fall Prevention in Acute Care Hospitals: A Randomized Trial."

The team's INQRI project addressed gaps in knowledge by establishing linkages between nursing fall risk assessment, risk communication and tailored interventions to prevent falls. The goal of this study was to prevent patient falls by translating an individual patient's fall risk assessment into a decision support intervention. This innovative intervention communicates fall risk status and creates a tailored evidence-based plan of care that is accessible to interdisciplinary team members, paraprofessionals, patients and family members.

As noted in the JAMA article, the team found that "the use of a fall prevention tool kit in hospital units compared with usual care significantly reduced rate of falls."

Click here to access the article on JAMA's website.
Click here to read a news article about the study on the e!ScienceNews website.