MedicalNurseTraining.com

New inexpensive technologies by Safer Falls.com significantly reduce the risk of falls and protect against the effect of falls particularly in the population now approaching 60 and above. New personal use technologies that are relatively unknown to some in the medical field, and more often the public can easily eliminate these preventable injuries and deaths.  The National Center for Patient Safety recently recommended the use of these new approaches to be used in treating patients whom are at high risk.

Patrick Devaney, Founder of Medical Nurse Training, Inc; discusses the necessity of such products when dealing with an elderly person who is at risk for falls in Long Term Care Facilities or in-home.  “Many people who try to convalesce at home from hip fractures and head injuries don’t fully recover.  There are some new affordable devices that can prevent these injuries from ever occurring.” Mr. Devaney goes on about how each device can be necessary for care and each individual’s unique situation in the accompanying video.

Medical Nurse Training, Inc.  provides the latest on-line training to Doctors and Nurses on fall prevention and protection. This includes in-house education on devices that will reduce injury from falls and related deaths and on-line education for those concerned about falls at home.

Hip Protectors – High Impact – absorbing pads that help protect hip bones against injury from falls. About 320,000 people suffer a hip fracture every year.  These pads are built into briefs, panties, sweat pants and sweat shorts. They can easily be laundered and re-used numerous times to help protect from falls. The use of these devices has been clinically proven to reduce injury. Many individuals that experience a fall are afraid to continue normal activities like walking. These devices help these people resume a normal life. Hip Fracture is one of the number one causes of death in older individuals. Our experience shows that hip protectors are generally not known by the general public

Fall Alarms – Inexpensive bed and chair exit electronic monitors otherwise known as Fall Alarms, assist with the observation of patients and family members to help reduce falls and the potential for elopement from home or a facility. A variety of sensor accessories may be used including toileting sensors, bed/chair sensors, infrared sensors and self releasing sensors may be attached to the monitor to reduce risk. These alarms include a gentle voice reminder not to get up without assistance.

Floor Cushions and Bath Mats – Certain areas of the home are very high risk for injury from falls like the bathroom. Special floor cushions and bath mats are designed to help reduce the impact from a fall and are frequently talked about in the clinical literature. These floor cushions are tri-fold in design, making them convenient to carry to areas requiring the most immediate protection. Bathrooms are also very high risk zones. The sure step bath mat can be used to significantly reduce the impact of a fall.

A complete list of Fall Prevention Products and availability and Clinical Resources are available at www.SaferFalls.com.  Fall Prevention and Protection Training Programs are available at www.MedicalNurseTraining.com. 

Author: William Burleson, VP MedicalNurseTraining.com and SaferFalls.com

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that over 60% of fatal falls occur in the home. Additionally the total cost of falls in 2010 is expected to be between 68 and 100 Billion Dollars. Most of this cost and loss of life is completely preventable through new fall prevention, fall protection products and safer falls education. Many of these medically significant events include hip fracture, head injury, fear of falling again, broken vertebrae and broken wrist.

Over 44 million baby boomers live at home with an elderly sick parent according to The Caring Alliance. Another 25 million at risk elderly live alone and unprotected from devastating falls. The current economic conditions have exacerbated these numbers. Since life expectancy has continued to increase this situation is likely to become even more prevalent. The faller may need to move in with adult children and adult children often have to take time off work to care for at risk parents. The costs emotionally and physically to the person who falls and their families is enormous.

Much of this information is virtually unknown to the general public. Annually there are approximately 370,000 hip fractures. Head injuries from falls at home are another significant medical cost. Falls are the major cause of 40% of nursing home admissions and subsequent costs to families. Per year, of those admitted to a hospital only about

50 % will survive a serious fall. Falls are the leading cause of accidental death and more than 33% of adults 65 and older fall each year. Reductions in healthcare costs is a current concern of all in the government and the effect of falls are major cost factor.

There is a web site MedicalNurseTraining.com that is the premier portal for training nurses and doctors utilizing a nationally known Geriatric Doctor, the Assistant Director of Nursing at Johns Hopkins and Patrick Devaney, President of Medical Nurse Training Inc., who has over 25 years experience lecturing on these topic to tens of thousands of nurses, doctors and healthcare facilities. Anyone who is above the age of 55 or has a relative, who is at risk for falls, is confused or agitated, has Alzheimer’s, or presents departure/elopement risk at home will be very interested in this new material. This information will be invaluable to seniors and their families. To see fall prevention training and fall protection devices for home, concerned individuals and families may go directly to www.SaferFalls.com for senior fall prevention.

Mr. Devaney’s mother died as the result of an unnecessary hip fracture. This loss could have easily been prevented with one of these new devices or education techniques. Numerous lives have already been saved with these clinically proven devices. Many nurses and doctors have commonly requested these new technologies and education be available to the general public. This company has partnered with the leading manufacturers of low cost fall prevention technologies to provide these fall products predominately available only through hospitals and nursing homes to the general public at institutional prices. Some of these devices include Hip Protectors, Fall and Exit Alarms, high impact Fall and Floor Cushions, Fall and Lift Furniture, Bed Safety Guards, Personal Pagers, high impact Bath Mats, Fall Management Socks and Shower Slippers.

By going to this company’s site www.MedicalNurseTraining.com you can get a broad overview of the types of programs they offer to the medical community, families, seniors and review educational materials. These medically sound approaches will eventually get attention and will reduce government costs in the Billions of dollars over the next few years. You can also review clinical references on these sites.

Note to Editors: This article and additional video/copy is available for reprint and speakers are available for your program.

In recent years it has been very difficult to find evidence based programs for fall prevention and fall protection. I have a personal reason for my involvement in this matter since my mother passed away as a direct result of a hip fracture. This event was totally preventable utilizing the techniques implemented by some forward thinking facilities like Johns Hopkins.

Facilities have been struggling with the appropriate modalities to reduce the incidence of falls and reduce restraint use at the same time. In order to find the ultimate solution requires a mix of assessment tools and up to date devices to achieve the highest reduction in fall risk. Additionally bed safety and reductions in side rail entrapment have been serious concerns especially for older beds. I also believe, as does CMS, that one of the best answers is too provide a train the trainer approach to hospital and long term care on fall prevention, fall protection, bed safety and restraint reduction. Fall Prevention Programs work particularly well in this format since fall prevention in nursing often requires significant falls training and retraining.

I began our journey to reinvent an all inclusive, evidence based program for fall prevention including online video training with over 400 pages of resources including  DVD’s and manual. The best approach was to elicit the best speakers on these topics including the ADON at Johns Hopkins and a geriatric doctor at one of the top 100 hospitals, Dr. Deidre Carolan from Inova Health System. We teamed up and developed a train the trainer that is loaded with all the needed content. Finally,  programs that addressed on line and in house training for; Hospital Fall Prevention, Long Term Care Fall Prevention, Restraint Reduction, Fall Prevention Protocols, Falls and Restraint Assessment, Acute Care Fall Prevention and Bed Safety.  

The programs are recorded with a live audience to increase the learning and retention experience. Valuable technologies including Fall Alarms, Posey Beds, Hip Protectors, Fall Mats, Self-Releasing Devices and Restraint Alternatives are demonstrated and discussed. Reducing the impact of the new Medicare changes of October 2008 are reviewed in detail. These accredited on line training programs include all the patient/resident safety regulatory recommendations and device suggestions. Numerous tools including the new Johns Hopkins restraint, falls policies and protocols as required by the new CMS and 2009 Joint Commission recommendations. I have reviewed numerous programs and I am confident this is the most state of the art program available. Attendees report this is the best program they have ever attended for staff and nursing training.

Many regulatory guidelines are often overlooked due to lack of information from the regulating agencies.  I have had the opportunity to work with and train numerous surveyors. There has often been some inconsistency between surveyors on the guidelines. The training I have done with the surveyors has reduced some of these inconsistencies. We have included much of the lessons learned in the On Line and DVD programs in a train the trainer, video and PowerPoint format.  This will certainly help to minimize negative surveys in Long Term and Acute Care settings.

Testimonials and clips of the program can be viewed on www.MedicalNurseTraining.com/Testimonials.html/

Article is Copyrighted 2009 - Patrick Devaney

Patrick Devaney, BA Psychology

President and Founder, Medical Nurse Training, Inc.

Patrick has been a consultant / trainer to numerous Health Care facilities, Corporations and LTCDON Associations.  Most recently as Executive Director of a state Director Of Nurses Association Long Term Care.  He has trained thousands of LTC and Critical Care facilities as a speaker on fall prevention, bed safety and restraint alternatives in one and three hour accredited speaking engagements.  His programs have been nationally accredited by the ANA for over 12 years with excellent results.