An Innovative Approach for Decreasing Fall Trauma Admissions from Geriatric Living Facilities: Preliminary Investigation

Geriatric living facilities have been associated with a high rate of falls. We sought to develop an innovative intervention approach targeting geriatric living facilities that would reduce geriatric fall admissions to our Level II trauma center. In 2011, a Trauma Prevention Taskforce visited 5 of 28 local geriatric living facilities to present a fall prevention protocol composed of three sections: fall education, risk factor identification, and fall prevention strategies. To determine the impact of the intervention, the trauma registry was queried for all geriatric fall admissions attributed to patients living at local geriatric living facilities. The fall admission rate (total fall admissions/total beds) of the pre-intervention period (2010–2011) was compared with that of the postintervention period (2012–2013) at the 5 intervention and 23 control facilities. A P value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. From 2010 to 2013, there were 487 fall admissions attributed to local geriatric living facilities (intervention: 179 fall admissions; control: 308 fall admissions). The unadjusted fall rate decreased at intervention facilities from 8.9 fall admissions/bed pre-intervention to 8.1 fall admissions/bed postintervention, whereas fall admission rates increased at control sites from 5.9 to 7.7 fall admissions/bed during the same period [control/intervention odds ratio (OR), 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.32, 1.05–1.67; period OR, 95%CI = 1.55,1.18–2.04, P = 0.002; interaction of control/intervention group and period OR 95% CI = 0.68, 0.46–1.00, P = 0.047]. An aggressive intervention program targeting high-risk geriatric living facilities resulted in a statistically significant decrease in geriatric fall admissions to our Level II trauma center.