Date of Graduation

Winter 12-16-2016

Document Access

Restricted Project/Capstone - USF access only

Degree Name

Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)

College/School

School of Nursing and Health Professions

First Advisor

Andrina Lemos

Abstract

Every year in the United States, hundreds of thousands of patients fall in hospitals, with 30-50% resulting in serious injury (Joint Commission [JC], 2015). Injured patients require additional treatment and sometimes prolonged hospital stays. A patient fall with injury costs over $30,000 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2016) and may add up to 6.3 days to the hospital stay (JC, 2015). Falls with serious injury are consistently among the Top 10 sentinel events reported to The Joint Commission’s Sentinel Event database (JC, 2015). The most common contributing factors pertaining to falls include inadequate nursing assessment, communication failures, lack of adherence to protocols and safety practices, deficiencies in the physical environment, inadequate staff education, insufficient patient supervision, unsafe staffing ratios, and/or lack of healthcare leadership.

The purpose of this project was to study the trends relating to patient falls and falls risk prevention on two medical-surgical units at a large metropolitan hospital. The project looked closely at inpatient falls from the perspective of both nurses and patients.

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