Running head: PREVENTION OF FALL INJURY POLICIES

PREVENTION OF FALL INJURY POLICIES

PREVENTION OF FALL INJURY POLICIES 2

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3

A clear statement explaining the background of the health policy that is being reviewed..............3

A brief overview of the policy and how it impacts on the health of older people...........................4

Evidence of consultation with consumers and colleagues to develop a new policy or update an
existing policy..................................................................................................................................5

A review of the evidence base to inform the content of the new or updated policy.......................6

A review of the evidence base focused on informing the successful implementation of the policy
in practice (i.e. real-world implications)..........................................................................................7

Recommendations about how to measure the successful implementation of new or updated

Policy...............................................................................................................................................7

Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8

References......................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction

Fall injury has become a burning issue among older people which creates a psychological
and economic impact on persons, relations, along with the communal places. It has been seen
that among the Australians there are a case of one third of people with 65 years of age falls every
12 months. The fall injury frequency is almost much advanced in hospitals as well as old age
homes because of sickness, changing environment, in addition to routine. Relatively minor injury
by falls among grownup persons can central to significant injury in addition to even death to the
individual. NSW health facilities have modified some sort of standard prevention policies for fall
injury which will be reviewed in this project. The background and overview of these policies,
impact on older people's health, updating and developing new policies and successful
implementation of these policies will be discussed in this project.

A clear statement explaining the background of the health policy that is being
reviewed

NSW Health has developed a number of standard fall prevention policies to prevent fall
injuries among older people. All these policies are regularly reviewed and monitored in order to
correct the strategy and to improve the policy. The policy says all over 65 aged patients will
receive fall jeopardy valuation as portion of the complete admittance impost. The nursing officer
is accountable for the admission bill which had to complete quickly with the arrival of the patient
in the hospital chamber. It clearly suggests the necessity of fall risk assessment during the
admission time and if it is done in a proper way the chance of fall injury might be reduced to
some extent (Morello et al., 2017). 
The policy related to the prevention of falls says patients over 65 years attending the
substitute subdivision in SESIH as well as are not self-confessed, are considered as under the
problem. This assessment is to be done by the present nursing officer as soon as possible after
the initial assessment. This policy suggests that if the patient is not admitted to the hospital still it
is necessary to conduct a fall injury assessment. 
NSW Health has suggested the ONTARIO modified STRATIFY tool for decrease
jeopardy impost. The contrivance has criteria of history of falls, mental status, vision, frequency
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of urination, ability to go from bed to chair, mobility score. All these criteria must be taken into
consideration for effective fall risk assessment if the score is greater than 9 it suggests the
tolerant is under the jeoprady (Okubo, Schoene & Lord, 2017).
During the discharge time, a nursing officer should plan and manage the fall injury in
such a way so that the patient party becomes aware of the hazard influences as well as how to
prevent the crisis in the surrounding of home environment. A physician can instruct to the
germane patient to visit for regular check up in the nearest clinic.

A brief overview of the policy and how it impacts on the health of older
people 

NSW has a number of policies to prevent fall injuries. All the policies must be taken into
consideration for effective risk assessment and management. The policy says all identified fall
risk can be marked as the name of alert within the healthcare top of every individual. It is very
clear that all the risk factors associated with fall injury are crucial and significant and so nursing
officers should give concern to all those risk factors associated with fall injury and must
document it as an ‘alert’. It may reduce the number of cases of fall injuries (Sherrington et al.,
2017).
NSW fall prevention policy suggests all the candidates related to the situation admitted
the hospital must possess medical record and reassessment of fall risk and prevention strategy.
The policy says all in-patient aged 65 years and over 65 years will receive fall risk assessment as
part of the full admission assessment. It means if a patient is having a fall history in-hospital
medical check-up must be done and reassessment of fall risk and prevention strategy must be
done. This may reduce the number of fall injuries. The policy states the nursing superintendent
must ensure all the in-patient falls are investigated as a part of the incident management process.
It clearly refers to the nursing manager who should investigate all in-patient’s file or fall injury
assessment. If it is done regularly the chance of fall injury might reduce to some extent. The fall
risk screening tool must be sensitive and effective which will cover all the criteria related to fall
injury (Grebely et al., 2016). This can ensure the patient that fall injury will not occur. All the
clinicians and nursing staff are responsible for the effective implementation of targeted strategies
to minimize the fall risk for each patient. Impaired balance, reduced mobility, muscle weakness,
cognitive impairment, poor vision, all these factors must be taken into consideration while
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assessing fall risk injury and documented as an ‘alert’. All these policies must be reviewed and
monitored by the effective team of doctors and nurses for the effective implementation of the
strategy (Morris et al., 2016).

Evidence of consultation with consumers and colleagues to develop a new

policy or update an existing policy

NSW policy requires to update the new content in the policy in order to increase the
effects of implementation among the people who are above 65 years. NSW health policy requires
facilities to provide screening assessment and management of fall risk factors among older
people. All the policies must be updated and it should be discussed with the consumer party and
health care provider. The policy says all in-patient aged 65 years and over 65 years will receive
fall risk assessment as part of the full admission assessment. There are a number of hospitals like
Sydney Day hospital, Sydney Medical Centre, St. Georg Hospital, Gateway Day hospital which
have evidence of consultation with consumers and colleagues. The health care provider needs to
fix a day for discussion of the risk assessment tool to update it for effective implementation. A
multidisciplinary team is needed where every health personnel like physiotherapists, dietitians,
pharmacists will adhere together to monitor the fall risk assessment tool. Communication must
be included in the risk assessment policy for fall injury which will reduce the rate of a fall injury.
The nursing officer would be responsible for the hand over to the next shift nurse regarding the
present risk factor of a particular patient for a fall injury (Visvanathan et al., 2019).
When transferring the patient temporarily to the other department, for example; for the
diagnostic procedure or in Operation Theater the nurse should communicate to the allocated staff
regarding the fall risk factor which is present in the patient. Based on the risk factor the allocated
staff will take action to mitigate the fall injury. All the risk factors for fall injury must be retained
in the shift handover so that oncoming staff becomes aware regarding the risk factors and staff
can be allocated accordingly. All the identified fall risk must be documented as an ‘alert’.
Information that must be handed over to the staff includes patient fall risk status, history of a fall
injury, and how and when it occurred, prevention strategy in place, referrals still required to be
followed up. So communication must be included in the risk assessment policy for a fall injury
(Sherrington et al., 2019). 
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A review of the evidence base to inform the content of the new or updated
policy

NSW policy requires to update the new content in the policy in order to increase the
effects of implementation among the people who are above 65 years. The Foundation needs to be
based according to consumer requirements. In this regard, many health care organizations in
Australia have fixed a day for discussing consumer needs and how the risk assessment tools are
working to assess the health conditions of the old age peoples. The update or new content can
help to improve the value of policy so that the old age people can be benefited from this NSW
policy. The measurement value of health care service needs to be aligned in the evidence of
update or by the implementation of new content in the NSW policy. The Update of NSW policy
requires to meet up the gap between the provided services and expected services of the aged
people in Australia (Ho et at., 2017). 
  It will reduce fall injury among the old people in Australia. The policy says all in-patient
aged 65 years and over 65 years will receive fall risk assessment as part of the full admission
assessment. Hence, it will help to reduce the impact of psychological, economic, social fall
injuries on individuals, families, and communities. As it totally gives facilities among the old age
people, in these aged people may frequently suffer in any other disease which is not recorded in
the information. Therefore, it is important to update the policy by incorporating the new data or
information about the old age people. Hence, the policy will be effective to give an impact on the
old age people. On the other hand, the expected facilities which wish to be required by the old
age peoples, it can be possible to reach the expectations by incorporating those facilities in the
new Updated NSW policy (Scott et al., 2019). 
The effectiveness of the implementation of these policies can be measured by observing
how well the infrastructure of the hospital where the fall injury is being treated has improved. It
helps to keep the health care organizations up to date by reviewing regularly the new content of
the policy. Providing health care organizations is growing its reputation by updating the  NSW
policy with proper regulations, technology, and best practices. The Updating of policy helps to
ensure that the policies are effective and consistent among the aged people in Australia. The
Updating or new content needs to be implemented in the NSW policy due to reducing the
difficulties which may be faced by the aged people in previously (Pighills, Drummond,
Crossland & Torgerson, 2019). 
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A review of the evidence base focused on informing the successful

implementation of the policy in practice (i.e. real-world implications) 

Before implementing the NSW policy in practice it is important to build up a team that is
involved in completing the entire process of implementation. Documents the clinical data or
information about the aged person in Australia. Every data about the aged person whom the
policy will be incorporated in needs to be clearly recorded.it  is important to modify the NSW
policy according to the requirements of consumers. Communication between the aged people is
important for recognizing the required changes in the policy (Balogun et al., 2017). In the next
steps, it is important to decide about the process for evaluating the NSW policy and identify the
effectiveness of implementing the policy in the practice. Examine the effectiveness of the new
policy after modifying the changes. After testing the new updated policy, it needs to be adopted
by the revised version of NSW policy among the old age people.  The last step, reviewing or
evaluating the new updated policy such as how it is working and identifying that it is reaching
the expectations of consumers in real life or not. It is necessary to follow all the processes and
steps while implementing NSW policy successfully in health care organizations in Australia.
Hence, it will be benefitted on behalf of the organization and aged people in both contexts
(Boylan et al., 2018). 

Recommendations about how to measure the successful implementation of

new or updated Policy 

The basic truth of any quality measure is that the quality of a job does not improve if it is
not measured. Therefore, there is a need to test the quality of fall prevention policies to see if
they have improved at all. This can be done by observing the patient's illness rate and prevention
methods. Regular monitoring is required to determine if the implementation of the policies is
appropriate.

1) Outcome - To understand whether the implementation of policies has been appropriate, one
has to look at the outcome of that implementation. This can be done by judging the number of
patients. Judging by the number of patients admitted for fall injury per 1000 beds, it is possible
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to understand how effective this implementation has been. It is necessary to keep an eye on
whether the number of patients is increasing or decreasing every day. If it is seen that the number
of patients is gradually decreasing then it is necessary to understand that the implementations
have been effective, otherwise it is necessary to understand that they have failed to play a
particularly effective role. If necessary, talk to the patient's relatives or family. Information can
be taken from them as to how beneficial this implementation has been for the patients (Roberts et
al., 2019).

2) Care Process - Observe at least two or three care processes to understand the effective role of
the implementation of this policy. It is necessary to monitor whether the assessment of fall risk
factors is being done properly. The methods being taken by the medical staff to prevent fall risk
should also be monitored. In this case, information can be taken from doctors and nurses. It is
also important to look at whether their training is appropriate for the treatment and prevention of
these fall injuries or whether they need more specialized training (Thackway, Campbell &
Loppacher,  2017). It is necessary to keep an eye on whether the number of patients is increasing
or decreasing every day. 

3) Infrastructure - The effectiveness of the implementation of these policies can be measured by

observing how well the infrastructure of the hospital where the fall injury is being treated has
improved. The observation should be made whether the patient is being treated by constructing
the type of infrastructure mentioned in this policy for the treatment of fall injury and as a result
mathematical measurement of patient improvement. This can be done by judging the number of
patients. It remains to be seen how useful such infrastructure will be for patients and whether
more needs to be added. It is also important to monitor whether the implementation team is
regularly monitoring the protection of this infrastructure (Smith, Rissel, Shilton & Bauman,
2017).

Conclusion 

As a conclusion, it can be said that people 65 years of age or older in Australia need
special caution about fall injuries. This can lead to death if the injury level is high. So medical
staff need to be more aware of this fall injury treatment. Many policies have been taken to
prevent these fall injuries. But these policies will only be successful if they are followed by the
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patient, his family, and his physician. There is also a special need to improve these policies. It is
also necessary to monitor whether that improvement is justified.
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