Making Things Better

(Alphabetical order) Eric Anderson, Shannon Black, Cheryl Deardurff, Carey Gaudern, Renee Friesner, Ryan Hans, Linda Hawks, Meaghan Hopkins, Lorraine Hubbard, Sarah Jackson, Sandy Kowalski, Shona Mikula, Vicky Mlynarczyk, Krista Myers, Sarah Paturalski, Brenda Pressler, Steve Rupard, Katherine Russell, Janet Saunders, Rachel Savoie, Carolyn Taylor

Preventing falls is a constant area of focus inside our hospitals. In addition to causing serious injury that can be life threatening, patient falls delay a person’s release from the hospital and drive up health care costs.

That is why Beacon’s Performance Improvement team, associates from Elkhart General and Memorial, came together for a four-day continuous improvement event addressing patient falls. The Kaizen event, where improvements or major changes are made by associates who do the work, led the team to identify that a lack of consistency between clinicians and entities was the biggest opportunity for improvement.

“There was a lot of great teamwork and the group was very motivated at making improvements focused on patient safety,” says Beacon Performance Improvement Consultant Amanda Mack.

Using the Beacon Improvement Methodology, the team decided on a new method of assessment for fall risk, the Johns Hopkins Fall Risk Assessment Tool, as well as standardizing tools and interventions to prevent falls. This team’s efforts went live April 19 and is designed to significantly reduce the number of falls in our hospitals.