My project is going to be done in a Professional Medical Center L & C in miami,florida
and the topic is Prevalence of falls in the elderly belonging to that center.
Consider the population in which the solution is intended, the staff that will participate,
and the key contributors that must provide approval and/or support for your project to be
implemented. These stakeholders are considered your audience.
Develop an implementation plan (1,500-2,000 words). The elements that should be included
in your plan are listed below:
- Method of obtaining necessary approval(s) and securing support from your
organization’s leadership and fellow staff. - Description of current problem, issue, or deficit requiring a change. Hint: If you are
proposing a change in current policy, process, or procedure(s) when delivering patient
care, describe first the current policy, process, or procedure as a baseline for comparison. - Detailed explanation of proposed solution (new policy, process, procedure, or education
to address the problem/deficit). - Rationale for selecting proposed solution.
- Evidence from your review of literature in Module 2 to support your proposed solution
and reason for change. - Description of implementation logistics (When and how will the change be integrated
into the current organizational structure, culture, and workflow? Who will be responsible
for initiating the change, educating staff, and overseeing the implementation process?) - Resources required for implementation: Staff; Educational Materials (pamphlets,
handouts, posters, and PowerPoint presentations); Assessment Tools (questionnaires,
surveys, pre- and post-tests to assess knowledge of participants at baseline and after
intervention); Technology (technology or software needs); Funds (cost of educating staff,
printing or producing educational materials, gathering and analyzing data before, during,
and following implementation), and staff to initiate, oversee, and evaluate change.
Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide,
located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
PREVALENCE OF FALLS IN THE ELDERLY 2
Prevalence of falls in the elderly
Falls among the elderly is a problem that is increasingly becoming a major issue in many
organizations. Professional medical L&C attends to a lot of elderly people and consequently, the
centre is one of the organizations in the country that has been significantly affected by the
problem of falls among the elderly. This situation has prompted the staff at Professional medical
centre L&C to take proactive measures to avert this problem. The initiative of prevention of falls
among the elderly at professional L&C medical centre is guided by its objectives which are: to
minimize the number of falls among the elderly, to minimize cost associated with treating
various medical complications arising from falls among the elderly and lastly, to impart relevant
knowledge among the elderly that will ensure that they are able to prevent themselves from
falling down and having to suffer the health ramifications associated with the falls.
In order for this initiative to be implemented, it must have the necessary approval from all
the stakeholders including the centre’s leadership and staff. For the purpose of securing this
approval, a comprehensive proposal will be presented to the aforementioned stakeholders that
will include a detailed description of the problem, its effects on both the patients and the
organization and the plan of implementation including the logistical consideration proposed for
the implementation of the plan.
Fulmer, Foreman and Walker (2001) assert that there are several aspects with to falls
among the elderly that makes it a unique problem that requires prompt intervention in order to
prevent it. First and foremost, Fulmer, Foreman and Walker (2001) assert that the elderly are
more likely to fall than their younger counterparts. This therefore implies that the level of care
that goes specifically towards prevention of falls among the elderly should be significantly
PREVALENCE OF FALLS IN THE ELDERLY 3
higher than that which normally goes towards prevention of the same among the younger
population. Fulmer, Foreman and Walker (2001) describe recurrent falls as falls that whose
occurrence is more than three times in a year. The frequency of falls among the elderly can be
described as recurrent falls because most of the elderly who are actually affected by this problem
experience a fall more than three times at any given year. This high frequency of falls among the
elderly implies that the elderly are more likely to suffer the devastating effects of falls and are
therefore more likely to significantly higher financial costs associated with treating some of the
medical complications that might have been occasioned by the falls.
In addition to the higher frequency of falls among the elderly as compared to the younger
population, another aspect about this unique problem that qualifies it to be unique is that, falls
among the elderly are more likely to result into more serious medical complications as compared
to falls among the younger population. Fulmer, Foreman and Walker (2001) point out that
various forms of fractures are some of the most common medical complication that is usually
occasioned by falls among the elderly. Fractures such as wrist fractures and fractures of the
femur are more common among the elderly and according to Fulmer, Foreman and Walker
(2001) an elderly person subjected to the same fall in terms of its intensity as a young individual
is more likely to experience a fracture at the body part that has borne the brunt of the falls impact
than the young individual. This can be attributed to the fact that the elderly have much weaker
bones that might easily get fractured in case they are subjected to extreme conditions.
One of the main reasons behind the high prevalence of falls among the elderly at
professional L&C medical centre is the uniform approach adopted by the centre’s staff when it
comes to the treatment of both the elderly and the younger patients. The nature of treatment and
PREVALENCE OF FALLS IN THE ELDERLY 4
specifically, the procedures involved in the treatment ranging from the admission procedure, the
actual treatment procedure and the discharging procedure among both the elderly and the
younger patients is more or less the same. This results to the elderly having to do things at a pace
that might be higher than what their bodies can sustain thereby, increasing their susceptibility to
falls.
In order to avert this situation, Fulmer, Foreman and Walker (2001) point out that the
centre should adopt a more inclusive policy that will see the level of specialized care among the
elderly significantly increased specifically for the purpose of averting falls among the elderly.
Inclusivity is an important aspect when it comes to addressing the problems that might be facing
a specific portion of nay given population and therefore, inclusivity as far as the operations of
professional L&C medical centre will ensure the problem of falls among the elderly is
comprehensively addressed. Specifically, the new policy will involve the implementation of an
admission procedure that will take into account the age of the patient and as such, elderly
patients will not be accorded a higher priority so that they do not have to spend a lot of time in
the admissions queue. This is an important implementation aspect since there is a direct
correlation between the time the patients spend in the admissions queue and their likely hood that
they might fall at some point either during the admission itself or after the admission procedure.
In addition to reducing the amount of time that elderly patients will have to spend in the
admissions queue, another measure that will implemented in order to enhance the inclusivity of
L&C center is the restructuring of the nurses’ duties and responsibilities. As much as nurses
actually play a significant role as far as prevention of falls among both the elderly and other
categories of patients, the centre should have dedicated nurses who among other things, should
PREVALENCE OF FALLS IN THE ELDERLY 5
ensure that the elderly patients are assisted in moving from one place to another within the
centre. This is due the fact that most of the falls are as a result of elderly patients having to move
from one place to another without the help of a nurse of any other person for that matter. A
policy that seeks to ensure that each and every elderly patient is assisted in their physical
movements will therefore go a long way in averting this situation.
In order to successfully implement this new inclusive policy, the organization will have
to employ several resources that will be deployed in implementing various aspects of the policy.
The first and perhaps most important resource is the staff. The new policy entails the
introduction of additional duties and responsibilities within the organizational structure and this
might require additional staff to be employed by the centre. In addition to that, the organization
will have to employ the use of several educational materials such as pamphlets, handouts and
power point presentations that will be meant to educate both the staff and the patients
themselves. Finally, the centre will have to source for funds to facilitate the training of both the
existing and the new staff on the various procedural requirements that will be involved in the
implementation of the new policy.
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Reference
Fulmer, T., Foreman, M.D. & Walker, M.K. (2001). Critical Care Nursing of the Elderly:
Second Edition. London: Springer.