1. Sunrise Health Region Home Care

2. Background Esterhazy Home Care approached us enthusiastically wanting to be part of this collaborative. They recognized that falls were being under reported within their service and wanted to do something about this. The population that we are looking after is mostly elderly with many people that have chronic disease issues.

3. Aim of The Home Care Team Our aim was to reduce falls occurring within the home care population. To do this we needed to create reporting systems to capture who was falling and why. The purpose was to improve the service to the client’s that we serve in the Esterhazy area.

4. TEAM This is a collaborative project being worked on by the Professional Practice department and the Esterhazy Home Care Team. Together we are building a falls program to protect our Communities.

5. Goals That every client will have a Tuggs test and environmental assessment completed to provide us with a baseline. That all falls will be assessed within 30 days of being reported. That the falls interventions will be noted in the clients chart and in the communication book in the home.

6. Results

7. Results Continued

8. Changes Tested We have implemented Calendars for our clients to mark in dates when they have not fallen. We have created forms that will capture falls as well as look at interventions to limit clients from falling again We have implemented Tuggs testing and Environmental scans to provide baseline assessments on all clients.

9. Lesson’s Learned Change occurs slowly. That the planning of the initiative is crucial to having a successful roll out. That knowing why clients fall and where helps us to look at what we can do about their falls. Client’s have control of the recommendations we make to them in this setting. Communication is key, without it all other activity grinds to a halt.

10. Next Steps We plan to continue gathering data and making sure that our reporting systems work. Working with the physicians and pharmacist within Sunrise and we hope to have a Vitamin D protocol established in the near future. Completing intervention assessments after a fall and looking at how to implement suggested interventions.

11. Community Pillar Work the Falls Prevention Collaborative to implementing three community strategies with a focus on community capacity building, prevention of falls and address issue related to mobility. Project identified for 2012 – 2014 are walking clubs, Forever In Motion program implementation and inventory of current prevention programs and community audits to identifying barriers like trip hazards. All of which are supportive of the principles that we are building in to the Home Care falls program.