Falls and injury from falls are critical issues in healthcare safety. Almost half of all elderly residents in facilities providing long-term care fall every year. Some 40 per cent of admissions to facilities providing long-term care, such as nursing homes, are the direct result of a fall. One in three of those who fall develop serious injuries. Those who fall are at higher risk for future falls and injury.

The Falls intervention is designed around a Breakthrough Series Collaborative, which brings a unique perspective to quality improvement. Facilities providing long-term care will enroll teams of five to seven staff in the learning collaborative and for the next 12-months, these teams will implement evidence-based change interventions in their local practice. The teams will be supported through learning sessions, regular facilitated teleconferences and networking with other Improvement Teams and national experts in falls prevention. A proven effective approach to practice change will be utilized, including three specific learning sessions interspersed with action periods that follow the quality improvement cycle of Plan-Do-Study-Act (the PDSA cycle).

Teams enrolled in the Collaborative will look at four main areas where caregivers can make a difference, related to falls and injury from falls in older persons. These are awareness of risk, prevention of falls, falls intervention and reduction of injuries. The goal is to reduce falls and fall injuries by 40 per cent in participating sites.

This national intervention is led by the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) and co-sponsored by the Western Leadership Group. It is based on a team approach with full engagement of regulated and unregulated care providers including, nurses, personal support workers, physiotherapists, physicians, occupational therapists, pharmacists and the ministries leading provincial falls prevention initiatives. The Falls Collaborative also aligns with the CCHSA Required Organizational Practice on the prevention of falls in conjunction with the mitigation of resulting injury.