Reducing medical-surgical inpatient falls and injuries with videos, icons and alarms.

backgroundInpatient falls and subsequent injuries are among the most common hospital-acquired conditions with few effective prevention methods.

objectiveTo evaluate the effectiveness of patient education videos and fall prevention visual signalling icons when added to bed exit alarms in improving acutely hospitalised medical-surgical inpatient fall and injury rates.

designPerformance improvement study with historic control.

settingFour medical-surgical units in one US public acute care hospital. STUDY

participantsAdult medical-surgical inpatients units.

interventionsA 4 min video was shown to patients by trained volunteers. Icons of individual patient risk factors and interventions were placed at patients' bedsides. Beds with integrated three-mode sensitivity exit alarms were activated for confused patients at risk of falling.

main outcome measuresThe main outcome measure is the incident rate per 1000 patient days (PDs) for patient falls, falls with any injury and falls with serious injury. The incident rate ratio (IRR) for each measure compared January 2009-September 2010 (baseline) with the follow-up period of January 2015-December 2015 (intervention).

resultsFalls decreased 20% from 4.78 to 3.80 per 1000 PDs (IRR 0.80, 95% CI 0.66 to 0.96); falls with any injury decreased 40% from 1.01 to 0.61 per 1000 PDs (IRR 0.60, 95% CI 0.38 to 0.94); and falls with serious injury 85% from 0.159 to 0.023 per 1000 PDs (IRR 0.15, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.85). Icons were not fully implemented.

conclusionThe first known significant reduction of falls, falls with injury and falls with serious injury among medical-surgical inpatients was achieved. Patient education and continued use of bed exit alarms were associated with large decreases in injury. Icons require further testing. Multicentre randomised controlled trials are needed to confirm the effectiveness of icons and video interventions and exit alarms.