Falls are a leading cause of patient harm across community settings, hospitals and residential aged-care facilities with most falls prevention strategies neither effective nor cost effective.
Since 2015 a passionate group of researchers, clinicians, hospital managers and consumers have been working collaboratively under the leadership of Professor Terry Haines, to enhance collective efforts to prevent falls across the Monash Partners network.
Recently this group secured a $1.1 million NHMRC ideas grant to lead a project investigating the effect of removing mobilisation alarms from use in hospital wards across six of our partner health service organisations. Read more here.
Priority areas have been established and a large mapping study of falls prevention strategies and investment across our six health service partners has been completed.
The study captured more than 5,000 episodes of routine care and identified areas for disinvestment due to a lack of benefit, including mobilisation alarms, designed to alert staff when a patient is attempting to mobilise and may be at risk of falling.
Further research is underway to guide disinvestment and ensure resources are directed toward strategies where there is evidence of patient benefit.
The short video below features Professor Terry Haines explaining the project.
The Falls Prevention Committee is part of The Victorian Research Translation Centre Collaborative between the three Victorian translation centres: Monash Partners Academic Health Science Centre, the Melbourne Academic Centre for Health (MACH) and Western Alliance.
Falls are a leading cause of harm across the continuum of care. Falls are particularly challenging in the hospital setting where they are the most frequent clinical risk in patient care. To date, there is a variable evidence base supporting commonly used strategies to prevent falls. There is also variability between health services as to what strategies are utilised for the prevention of falls. Drawing on research and clinical expertise across the Research Translation Centres, a state-wide Falls Workshop was held in April 2021 to explore current evidence, challenges and future directions.
The purpose of the Falls Prevention Alliance is to work collaboratively to reduce falls and falls injuries in hospitals. This work is overseen by a committee made up of researchers, clinicians and consumers.
To find out more please contact:
MACH – mach-admin@unimelb.edu.au
Monash Partners – info@monashpartners.org.au
Western Alliance – info@westernalliance.org.au
Committee
CO-CHAIRS
Associate Professor Cathy Said, University of Melbourne, Western Health
Professor Meg Morris, La Trobe University
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Mr Drew Aras, Western Alliance
Associate Professor Frances Batchelor, National Ageing Research Institute
Dr Richard Kane, St Vincent's Hospital
Professor Terry Haines, Monash University
Professor Alison Hutchinson, Deakin University
Ms Michelle Iddles, MACH
Ms Angela Jones, Monash Partners
Ms Cassandra Hamilton, Western Alliance
Ms Cathie Pigott, Monash Partners
Mr Nick Walsh, MACH
Mr Stephen Peterson, Consumer
Ms Simone Burgess, Austin Health
Mr Uyen Phan, Northern Health