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. 

By Wade Thomas

When helping administrators and managers decide what the best products are at Preventing Hospital Falls, I always like to look at both the products and non-product alternatives to preventing hospital falls.  So many times a patient just needs to go to the bathroom, that constant rounding by the CNAs ( PCTs or PCAs ) and RNs are all that are needed to show a decrease in fall rates.

But products such as the Posey Bed Alarms are also great fall prevention products to help assist the nurses in keeping their patient safe and preventing hospital preventable falls!!  The best part about it is that the nurses do NOT need a doctor’s order to use a bed alarm on a patient.  It is based on nursing judgment whether they need to use one or not, or better yet, when it is written into the hospital’s policies and fall prevention protocols, the nurses don’t even have to think about it - they just do it !!!

It’s also important to have awareness of nursing practices.  I was recently in a hospital where the falls rates were really high, and the CNO and managers were asking me to find out more information as to why their rates were so high.  Upon exploring this with their nurses and CNAs, I discovered a two really important reasons why they were having issues.

First, the nurses where spread out among 3 to 4 wings on a floor.  They would have 2 patients on Wing A, 2 or 3 on Wing B, and 1 on Wing C and in one case, one patient on Wing D.  Most of the nurses were spread among 3 wings on the floor.  The CNAs were also spread thin covering not the normal 10 to 12 patients, but they were covering 12 to 14 patients, especially when the hospital would pull a CNA to be a Sitter to watch a patient, because the doctors are use to ordering sitters.

By using the Posey Sitter II Bed Alarm, then CNAs were effectively able to manage that number of patients across the 3 to 4 wings that they were covering.  They hooked the alarms to the nurse call system, and whenever the alarm would start talking to the patient ( yes, I did say TALKING BED ALARMS ), it would call the nurse call system.  For those confused patients, they would set the alarms to TONE ONLY, and it would ring the tone AND call the nurse call system.

The second big problem was that the nurses, nor CNAs, did NOT have the time to ask and take each patient to the bathroom.  And when they would take them, they would leave them in the bathroom and help the patient in another room and come back and check on the patient in the bathroom.  THUS, the explanation for the BIG INCREASE IN BATHROOM Related Hospital Falls.

Now, there are solutions available to help solve that problem also.  But it really comes back to the nursing practice of AWARENESS !!!  Being aware of the patient’s needs will help predict future behavior or activities and can help in preventing hospital falls!!!

Other ways that can help hospitals in preventing hospital falls includes:

1. From the website Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare, hospitals are teaming up with each other, regardless of their competitive natures and locations to help solve this problem:

Hospitals Collaborate to Prevent Falls

By Kathryn Pelczarski and Cynthia Wallace

Philadelphia-area hospitals have charted a unique strategy in patient safety: Facilities that are normally competing for patients are collectively identifying effective measures to prevent patient falls. Harnessing their strength as a regional collaborative, the hospitals have shared stories of how to implement effective interventions for falls prevention and have participated in brainstorming workshops to identify a long list of additional strategies. The facilities can then choose from the list those interventions that zero in on their unique challenges.

http://www.psqh.com/novemberdecember-2008/91-november-december-2008/277-hospitals-collaborate-to-prevent-falls.html

2. Creating signs in the NATIVE LANGUAGES of your patients to help them AND their family members understand the things that can be done to reduce falls.  The Ohio State University Medical Center has an example of this for public use without copyright concerns, where they had the instructions in both English and Hindi.

http://www.healthinfotranslations.com/pdfDocs/PreventingfallsinthehospitalHdiFinal.pdf

3. Keeping current with Great Hospital Purchasing GPOs, such as Premier, and all of the resources that a GPO keeps on their website to help educate their hospitals.

http://www.premierinc.com/safety/topics/falls/

4. Staying Current by attending leading, cutting edge falls and patient safety conferences, such as the one that is sponsored by USF & the VA VISN 8 in Tampa, Florida each year in Clearwater Beach, Florida.  This will be their 11th Annual Conference on May 4-6, 2010.  I definitely attend as many as these as I can, and I’ve watched this one grow from 9 years ago to what it has become today.

Here’s a couple of links about it:

http://www1.va.gov/VISN8/PatientSafetyCenter/safePtHandling/default.asp

http://www.cme.hsc.usf.edu/falls/

5.  Posey Company Fall Prevention Education & Information - The Posey Company provides valuable information and resources for hospitals to use.  By just calling them on the telephone or even emailing the author of this article, they will have a well trained & knowledgeable representative contact you about the education information and fall prevention product solutions that can help your hospital.  By having representatives in hospitals daily, Posey learns what is working and not working, and offers educational webinars, online CEU training programs and product solutions.  Visit http://www.Posey.com/ for more information.

In wrapping up this guest blog post for Medical Nurse Training’s website,  by aligning yourself with leaders in the industry that are doing the research, staying on top of the research and creating new solutions for preventing hospital falls, your falls rates and hospital falls rates with injuries will significantly decrease!!  It does not happen over night, and you always have to remember, that it’s not a race, but it’s a marathon to find the right solutions and answers to help you and your hospital in preventing hospital falls!!
Wade Thomas is a Hospital Falls Consultant to hospitals primarily in the State of Florida.  He works to provide education, training, and fall prevention products that will help any hospital to decrease their fall rates and more importantly, their falls with injuries rates.  He attends the annual Patient Safety Conference in Clearwater Beach, Florida and also attends the State of Florida annual Florida Health Care Association show for nursing home directors and administrators.  To contact Mr. Thomas for more information on how he or one of his associates can work with your hospital, please email WadeThomas at AOL.com

Copyright 2010 - Wade M. Thomas & MedicalNurseTraining.com - Please feel free to share this article with your friends and colleagues.  Please leave the entire article and author’s biography box intact.  Thank You.

Author: Pat Devaney

New fall identifiers are helping to identify patients and residents at risk.  Once identified, proven technologies and education can significantly reduce risk even after discharge.  Acute Care facilities are struggling to minimize the effect of preventable falls on the facility budget.  We have included a compilation of ideas for your review on fall prevention and fall protection through online falls training coupled with new effective technologies.

This is to announce a tremendous saving in lives and medical costs of over $200 billion yearly.  Most of these savings can be achieved by reducing the risk of falls and protecting 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, will easily eliminate these useless injuries and death.  The National Center for Patient Safety recently recommended the use of these new approaches.  We are receiving numerous requests to offer this information to the general public and we are eager to perform this public service.

The President of Medical Nurse Training, Inc.,Mr. Devaney, is available to speak to these new technologies and education for your program.  Medical Nurse Training 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 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 elopement risks at home will be very interested in this new material.

Mr. Devaney’s mother died as the result of an unnecessary hip fracture.  This loss would have easily been prevented with one of these new devices or education techniques.  Numerous lives have already been saved with these clinically proven devices.

We have partnered with the leading manufacturers of these low cost medical technologies to provide these devices predominately available only through hospitals and nursing homes to the general public at an institutional price.

By going to www.MedicalNurseTraining.com you can get a broad overview of the types of programs we offer to the medical community and review our blogs.  We would welcome a discussion of how your program and listeners/viewers will greatly benefit from this information. This piece will be of interest to most, if not all. These medically sound approaches have gotten attention and will reduce government costs in the trillions of dollars over the next 10 years.  You can also review clinical references on this site.

Medical Nurse Training 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.

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 leading 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.  Many of these devices are unknown to the general public.

Floor Cushions and Bath Mats – Certain areas of the home are a 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. The mat is impervious to water and bacterial growth and can be custom cut to fit the contours of any bathtub or floor.

Please go to www.MedicalNurseTraining.com for more information on these programs and devices. A consumer section with numerous new fall prevention and fall protection devices will appear on the site shortly. In the meantime you are welcome to email us with your immediate needs.

Medical Nurse Training, Inc. announces two programs that will increase patient settlements, assist representation at trial, and bring Attorneys state of the art fall prevention and protection training.

Medical Nurse Training 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 who has over 25 years experience lecturing on these topic to tens of thousands of nurses, doctors, lawyers, and healthcare facilities. The assistant director of Nursing at Johns Hopkins, an expert legal medical witness, demonstrates the current standards of care in fall prevention and bed safety.  Also discussed in detail, are the legal ramifications of not following these practices.

Root causes and specific solutions for patient falls, resident falls, and in home falls are also described in detail in this on line or DVD based program. There are two low cost accredited programs that include Acute Care and Long Term Care/Home Care.  Independent Falls Consultant, Jaime Cole stated, “The flow of the program is very impressive and easy to follow along with since it is predominately lecture video with side by side PowerPoint.”  Protocols and over 400 pages of other resources are also included that cover nearly every aspect of this topic.  

Numerous current tools, statistics, pictures, and videos will be useful in any pretrial brief or trial proceedings.  Medical Nurse Training, Inc. provides continuous updates through their website that are sure to provide incredible insight to any Firm with valuable monthly blogs and newsletters. This program will bring added value to all personal injury cases with many statistical benchmarks, deferential analysis, and standards of care.

For more information about the programs available from Medical Nurse Training, Inc., please visit http://www.medicalnursetraining.com.

Expert Speaker #1:
Maria Cvach MS, BSN
Assistant Director of Nursing for Regulatory Affairs
Johns Hopkins Health System

Maria is a legal nurse consultant and a nurse education consultant.  She is co-author of the nationally recognized, Johns Hopkins Fall Risk Assessment Tool, an evidence based approach to Fall Risk Assessment, Fall Prevention and Falls Management.

Maria Cvach presents her Fall Prevention Protocols from Johns Hopkins Health System. She provides information and insights from their new evidence based falls program and helps other hospitals to have the success that Johns Hopkins has using it to reduce their Hospital Preventable Falls.

To Watch a video clip of her presentation, please visit http://www.medicalnursetraining.com/AcuteCare.html