| Thursday, July 12, 2007: 8:00 AM-9:30 AM | |||
| A Cost Effective Evidence-Based Fall Prevention Program through Transdisciplinary Collaboration | |||
| Learning Objective #1: Identify methods of assessing high risk inpatients for falls prevention follow-up. | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Discuss successful cost effective interventions for reducing risks of falls and hospital costs of care. | |||
| In a health care climate with shrinking reimbursement and tighter margins, it is challenging to implement new programs with expenditures not directly linked to revenue. In 2005, decreasing risks of falls in the elderly was identified as a priority at state, local, and system levels for Arizona. At SHC, a hospital system in the NE metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona area, falls were the second greatest injury related reason for admission to the emergency department. This led SHC to the development of the Healthy Steps Outpatient Fall Prevention/Intervention Program which followed high-risk patients into the community post discharge. The demonstration project assessed patients at high risk for falls while inpatients in the SHC system which consists of two hospitals (combined beds =743) with a total combined admissions in 2005-2006 of 36,817. A geriatric social worker developed and implemented individual treatment plans for each patient in the intervention group. Comparisons between intervention and control groups were then made at 6 months prior to intervention and again at 2, 4, and 6 months after the treatment plan was implemented in the intervention group on the following measures: (1) initial fall risk assessment, (2) hospital admissions, and (3) emergency visits. The results were calculated using data management systems already in place at SHC and showed that Healthy Steps participants had significant decreased risks of falls and significant and dramatic decreased utilization and total costs of services compared to patients that chose not to participate in the intervention, while the financial risk to the institution to implement the program for the 50 in the intervention group was minimal. | |||
| Organizer: | Evelyn L. Cesarotti, PhD, FNP | ||
| Planning a Successful Fall Prevention/Intervention Program Sharon Heuer, BS, MS, MEd, Chrys Anderson, RN, MS | |||
| Implementing a Fall Prevention/Intervention Program Jan Posin | |||
| Data Management in a Fall Prevention/Intervention Program Desiree Smith, BS | |||