An Exploration of the Relationship Between Patient Falls and Specific Nurse Variables
Abstract
At a time that our nation is focusing on healthcare reform, many healthcare organizations have shifted their focus to ensuring the safety of patients and the delivery of quality health care services. Patient falls are serious and long-standing problems within acute care hospitals. Because falls have become an epidemic in our healthcare industry, a major nursing-sensitive quality focus has been on inpatient falls. Organizations such as the Institute of Medicine, the American Nurses Credentialing Center, and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing have each placed an emphasis on nurse certification and higher nurse education. The establishment of a relationship between inpatient falls and a nurse's years of experience, level of education, and professional certification could potentially improve the quality of nursing care provided and patient outcomes.