The initiative also will provide additional funding for similar efforts to address opioid abuse and methamphetamine abuse in the Southwest and along the United States/Mexico border.
“This program demonstrates the importance of linking health to criminal justice in collaboration rather than seeing better, new drug policy as a choice between health and law enforcement,” Dr Robert L. DuPont, former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and president of the Institute for Behavior and Health, said in an interview.
Online resource is aid for preventing patient falls
BY MIKE BOCK
Frontline Medical News
| An online resource guide offers 21 targeted solutions for reducing the rate of falls in hospitals and urgent care settings,1 The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare announced in a statement. |
Developed in collaboration with seven hospitals and five health care organizations, the fall prevention methodology of the Targeted Solutions Tool could potentially reduce the number of patients injured from a fall from 117 to 45 in a typical 200-bed hospital, avoiding approximately $1 million in costs annually, the agency claims.
Some of the recommendations for reducing in-hospital falls include:
- Creating awareness among staff
- Using a validated fall risk assessment tool
- Engaging patients and their families in the fall safety program
- Hourly rounding with scheduled restroom use for patients
- Engaging all hospital staff and patients to ensure no patient walks without assistance
“Hundreds of thousands of patients fall in hospitals every year; and many of these falls result in moderate to severe injuries that can prolong hospital stays and require the patient to undergo additional treatment,” Dr Erin DuPree, vice president and chief medical officer of the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare, said in a statement.
The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare was created in 2008 as a nonprofit affiliate of The Joint Commission.
Dr Lappin is an assistant professor and an attending physician, department of emergency medicine, New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical College, New York.