Now that you have completed a series of assignments that have led you into the active project planning and development stage for your project, briefly describe your proposed solution to address the problem, issue, suggestion, initiative, or educational need and how it has changed since you first envisioned it. What led to your current perspective and direction?

        My EBP is focused on preventing falls and keeping the patient safe. The number one thing nurses do is assess the patient and when it comes to fall risk we should slack off. The current fall risk scale is 4-5 questions and it isn’t very good. At first my EBP was more focus on the proper staffing to help prevent falls but as nurses we know we wont ever have that. So, I had to figure out a more likely plan. So, I thought about the assessment process. The top 80% of falls are people over the age of 65. (Natalie,2016) That being said the age should be one of the main fall risks. If the person scores high enough then we start implementing certain things depending on the risk category they fall in. Once the assessment goes to affect it will be pretty self-explanatory. Nurses will just have to follow a step by step process and depending on the score the nurse will start certain things. The staff will just have to be educated on the new process and when to start certain safety steps to keep the patient safe. Falls cost the hospital a lot of money each year and one fall could cost up to $20,000 depending on the injury that occurred. (Memtsoudis,2012) I had a family member in the hospital and she was older and slightly confused and she ended up falling and breaking her hip. After the surgery and the long healing process she ended up getting pneumonia and she passed away 3 months after falling. With that being said some falls are impossible to stop but other can be prevented if the right assessments are done.

References:

•             Callis, Natalie  (02/01/2016). “Original Article: Falls prevention: Identification of predictive fall risk factors”.  Applied nursing research (0897-1897), 29,  53.

•             Burns, Elizabeth R.  (09/01/2016). “The direct costs of fatal and non-fatal falls among older adults—United States.”.  Journal of safety research (0022-4375), 58,  99.