Healthcare Organization Policy
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date
Healthcare Organization Policy
Introduction
Healthcare procedures and policies aim to offer standardization into day-to-day operations activities in a healthcare organization. Over the years, working with procedures and policies has become clear to people since they are significant in offering clarity when dealing with activities and issues critical to safety and health, regulatory requirements, and legal liabilities. Healthcare policies are essential and how they are managed depends on the institution (Growdon et al., 2017). Thus, it is always essential to have a thorough look at the organization’s existing policies to develop a powerful solution that helps manage activities and improve the efficiency and productivity of a healthcare facility. Thus, the paper will explore the Hahnemann University Hospital policy developed in 2012 to find the areas that can be changed and updated to much the current new guidelines in healthcare functions.
Analysis of the current care policy
Hahnemann University hospital has a patient care policy that explains about falls prevention and resource. The purpose of the policy is to establish guidelines for mitigating the risk of falls by patients. It also provides a mechanism for evaluating risk factors for patients falls, implements intervention that helps reduce the risk of falling, and mechanisms that protect patients from injury in case of a fall. The policy also aims to provide guidelines for the prevention of patient falls through diligent assessment, appropriate proactive action, and communication. It also provides guidelines that define actions in case of a fall and completes the required follow up documentation and assessment. Besides that, it gives staff procedures to retain responsibility for patient safety at all times, even if the family is present. The policy caters to all the patient care and any person with the hospital settings. It revolves around the hospital premises, accounting department, to even the hospital ambulances.
Issues
Over the years, there has been a rise in the technology-based application within hospitals developed to assist in the delivery of efficient and effective patient care programs. Additionally, there has also been an increase in the technological application that helps fall prevention for patients within hospitals. Due to this, the current fall prevention policy exhibits many issues as it has not been updated effectively to cater to procedures that help in fall prevention among all hospital stakeholders like patients and the staff (Fehlberg et al., 2017). It does not also offer fall prevention guidelines for handling the technological equipment within the hospital. The policy does not also offer guidelines on recognizing individuals at a high risk of first or subsequent falls. It also does not provide the assessment tools that can be sued to identify and modify the risk factors for falling. It has does not provide guidelines about the interventions that can help reduce the psychological consequences of falling and does not effectively say whether all the fall prevention programs are acceptable to patients.
Changes needed
Several changes can apply to the policy. Foremost, there is a need to have guidelines for a fall risk intervention. The intervention guidelines should be divided into three rows: low fall risk interventions, moderate fall risk, and high fall risk intervention. These guidelines will offer a way to address every situation, depending on its seriousness. The procedures will act as the guidelines for safety intervention that provide a way to handle the technological and the non-technological equipment need or used by the patients (LeCuyer et al., 2017). Additionally, fall prevention should be balanced with the other priorities of the patient. Since the individuals not at the hospital due to the fall, most of the time, attention is directed elsewhere. Its important for the policy to be centered on the patient to avoid causing a disastrous and prolonged recovery process (LeCuyer et al., 2017). The policy also needs to be balanced with mobile patients’ needs since some patients are constantly moving to avoid bed rest complications. The policy also needs to have changes that accommodate fall prevention while still emphasizing other priorities like infection controls (Vlaeyen et al., 2017). Moreover, the policy also needs to be within the universal fall precautions standards like familiarizing patients with their environment and keeping patient care areas uncluttered.
Proposed revisions
For a revised policy standard, it should have a well-defined pre-fall and post-fall guidelines. In the prefill guidelines, the hospital can update on issues like:
Pre-fall
- Completing fall risk assessment at admission and re-assess when the patient’s medical status changes.
- There should be a definition of a fall.
- Implement the universal fall precautions
- Provide guidelines on the fall risk assessment tools
- Provide guidelines on how to handle the new technological equipment.
Communication
- Guidelines that show how to identify and communicate among staff and staff at a high risk of fall
- Guidelines for the communication tools
- Guidelines on the requirement for communication about a fall between the unit manager and caregivers.
Post-fall
- Guideline on how to minimize patient injuries in post-fall
- Guideline for post-fall huddles
- Post fall huddle discussion guidelines
- Time frame to complete a post-fall huddle
- Guideline on the procedure for an incident report completion
- Guidelines on how to determine when to mobilize patient post-fall
- Requirements to establish the cause of fall
- Fall classification guidelines
- The incident report format and time frame to complete
Significance
The policy update is essential as it will set new standards for the plan of action that will guide the desired outcome and guidelines to help make the decision (Hallit et al., 2200). The policy will also communicate with the staff about the organization’s desired outcome if a fall occurs. It will also help them understand their roles, procedures, and responsibilities when a fall occurs; this will ensure the delivery of safe and cost effective care.
Summary
Fall prevention very essential and of high priority in any hospital setting. The study has provided an upgrade to the Hahnemann university hospital fall prevention policy. It has identified the main issues and has also proposed the needed changes. It has provided a new approach to the policy by guiding that the policy aspect should be based on pre-fall and post-fall procedures and policy (Hallit et al., 2200). It has also provided a fall prevention communication guideline and requirement for post huddle. However, the policy should not be limited to the provided guidelines as it needs to have additional procedures depending on the hospital settings. If properly implemented, it will ensure that there is safe and quality patient care delivery.
References
Growdon, M. E., Shorr, R. I., & Inouye, S. K. (2017). The tension between promoting mobility and preventing falls in the hospital. JAMA internal medicine, 177(6), 759-760.
Fehlberg, E. A., Lucero, R. J., Weaver, M. T., McDaniel, A. M., Chandler, M., Richey, P. A., … & Shorr, R. I. (2017). Impact of the CMS no-pay policy on hospital-acquired fall prevention related practice patterns. Innovation in Aging, 1(3), igx036.
Hallit, S., Selwan, C. A., & Salameh, P. (2020). Primary health care policy and vision for community pharmacy and pharmacists in Lebanon. Pharmacy Practice (Granada), 18(2).
LeCuyer, M., Lockwood, B., & Locklin, M. (2017). Development of a fall prevention program in the ambulatory surgery setting. Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing, 32(5), 472-479.
Vlaeyen, E., Stas, J., Leysens, G., Van der Elst, E., Janssens, E., Dejaeger, E., … & Milisen, K. (2017). Implementation of fall prevention in residential care facilities: A systematic review of barriers and facilitators. International journal of nursing studies, 70, 110-121.