Compliance with use of automated fall-injury risk assessment in three clinical information systems.

Abstract

Fall and injury prevention is a high priority in the acute care setting. Automated methods to identify patients at risk for falling and sustaining injury can streamline care processes and facilitate patient fall and injury prevention. The following study reports on the implementation and initial results of an automated Fall-Injury Risk assessment instrument integrated into three clinical information systems. Compliance with use of the automated instrument increased from 43% to 78% on units that did not have complete electronic nursing documentation. Units in which the instrument was integrated into the daily shift assessment, had 99-100% compliance. Further analysis will explore association of compliance with fall and injury rates.