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Spring 2008
Volume VI, Issue I
Cover illustration by
Robert Neubecker
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Department:
Bench
to Bedside
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Hopkins Fall Risk Tool Gaining Traction
By Teddi Fine
To
grandma and grandpa, the fate of Humpty Dumpty who "took a great fall" takes
on new and ominous meaning. Each year, around one third of older adults (age
65 and up) will have a fall. Many will suffer injuries that make it hard to
get around or live alone. Like Humpty Dumpty, some will not be able to be
"put together again"; over 14,000 adults will die as a result of
fall-related injuries. Health care costs related to falls among older adults
totaled over $19 billion in 2000. Direct and indirect costs associated with
falls could rise above $40 billion by 2020, giving new meaning to the term
"baby boom" generation. Without question, fall prevention has become
critical from both human and economic perspectives.
Five years ago, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins University School
of Nursing researchers Stephanie Poe, MScN, RN, Elizabeth Hill, PhD, RN, and
others began a fall safety initiative. The goal was to develop and implement
a set of evidence-based methodologies that help health care professionals
identify adults at greatest risk for falls. Reporting on their work to date
in the October/December 2007 Journal of Nursing Care Quality, they
describe the process of developing and testing the 8-part Johns Hopkins Fall
Risk Assessment Tool, including not only pilot testing throughout The Johns
Hopkins Hospital, but also the unique use of a "murder board" of clinical
experts to "tear the tool apart." The rigor with which Poe and her
colleagues approached the creation of this important tool may well help
explain the "high degree of acceptability" the Fall Risk Assessment Tool
already has received by clinical users. The researchers plan to conduct
further reliability and validity testing to help establish the instrument as
a best practice in fall prevention. Their goal is to help end falls for
everyone--except the characters in children's poems.
Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing
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