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Targeted Solutions Tool for Preventing Falls

Hundreds of thousands of patients fall every year and 30 to 35 percent of those patients will sustain an injury. In addition to patient safety concerns, patient falls have a significant impact on an organization’s finances due to lower reimbursement and the direct costs associated with treating injuries from falls.

Zero Patient Falls

“When hospitals and other health care organizations implement the knowledge that we gain from this project, their patients will be safer because they will be much less likely to fall…”

Mark Chassin, MD, CEO, and President, The Joint Commission

What it Does
How the Preventing Falls TST Works
Zero Harm Means Patients Don’t Fall

What it Does

The Preventing Falls Targeted Solutions Tool^® (TST^®) provides the foundation and framework of an improvement methods that, if implemented well, will improve an organization’s ability to prevent patient falls. The Preventing Falls TST is a web-based application designed to help health care organizations understand the reasons why patient falls so that they can implement evidence-based solutions to mitigate these factors.

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How the Preventing Falls TST Works

The Preventing Falls TST uses Robust Process Improvement^® (RPI^®) methodology in its design and structure. RPI is a fact-based, systematic and data-driven problem-solving approach that incorporates tools and concepts from Lean Six Sigma and formal change management methodologies. RPI tools have the depth and breadth to tackle complex and persistent problems in health care, such as eliminating patient falls.

Video: Why preventing falls is important

Zero Harm Means Patients Don’t Fall

The Preventing Falls TST will guide you through a robust process approach that can lead to improved patient safety and reduced costs. The project for the Preventing Falls TST was able to reduce the rate of patient falls by 35 percent and the rate of patients injured in a fall by 62 percent. If the approach is translated to a typical 200-bed hospital, the number of patients injured in a fall could be reduced from 117 to 45 and avoid approximately $1 million in costs annually through falls prevention efforts. Similarly, a 400-bed hospital could reduce falls with injury by 133 and expect to avoid $1.9 million in costs annually.

Learn about a new approach to preventing falls

Targeted Solutions Tool (TST)