Working together to reduce serious harm from falls

28 February 2018

More than 180 clinicians from 42 teams across the NSW health system met in Sydney on 28 February 2018 to reduce serious patient harm from falls in NSW hospitals.

The event was the second of four learning sets for the Falls Collaborative, with the third and fourth sets to run in May and September, respectively.

The main focus for the learning set was on reliability by design, using Quality Improvement Science.

From this theme, each team selected one of five core areas (outlined below) for improvement in their hospital in the lead up to the next learning set in May. The five core areas for improvement were:

  • intentional rounding
  • screening and assessment of patients at risk of decreased cognition and delirium
  • screening and assessment of patients at high risk of falls
  • monitoring of orthostatic blood pressure as a contributing factor to falls
  • the use of safety huddles, multidisciplinary team rounding, and safe mobilisation

"Today’s learning set is about helping clinicians to understand their role in designing and delivering processes that are reliable, sustainable and measurable," said the Clinical Excellence Commission's Director of Collaboratives, Deborah Browne.

"At the CEC we believe, that reliability is about keeping a promise and the teams working within the Falls Collaborative are learning how to keep their promise. The CEC's pledge from the Falls Collaborative is to support teams to provide high quality health care to every patient, every time."