Nursing Assignment: Bed Alarms To Reduce Patient Falls (Essay Sample)

Bed Alarms To Reduce Patient Falls
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Introduction
Patient falls can be defined as the unexpected episodes where an inpatient descends to the ground. The patient falls occur regularly in numerous hospitals. A big number of patient falls happen in the patient units in health facilities. In most of the healthcare centers, the falls occur when there is the absence of supervision from a health provider (Godshall, 2016). Patient falls can lead to the occurrence of injuries which may have a varying degree of severity brought about by the patient’s state, impact and orientation of the fall. This study reviews the use of bed alarms in preventing patient falls
Most of the patient falls are accidental which implies that application of precautions can help reduce their frequency. Patient safety is essential in every healthcare facility which implies maintaining a comfortable environment is important. Installing bed alarms and ensuring that the patient units are free from any risk factors such as floor spills, congestion and presence of physical barriers would reduce patient falls (Potter et al, 2016). It is also imperative that patients with high risk of experiencing drops be admitted in units where supervision prompt after an alarm ring.
Patient falls occur due to different underlying reasons such as; the presence of musculoskeletal conditions that lead to body weakness, balance deficits, neurological conditions, impaired vision, and the presence of cognitive diseases (Potter et al, 2016). It is important to identify these risk factors for patient falls in the inpatient units as the first step in averting the falls. Installing bed alarms in high-risk patients will help ensure that these patients receive sufficient monitoring that curbs the occurrence of falls.
Despite having only a small fraction in thousands experience falls, they should not happen because the intention of inpatient care is to improve the quality of life but not worsen it. Installed bed alarms help reduce chances of injuries arising from falls (Agrawal, 2014). The alarms should be designed in such a way that they can notify the nurse in charge once there is movement in the bed as the patient tries to wake up. The aim would be to prevent the deteriorating the patients’ health.
A key component in bed alarms is the ability to notify more than one health professional. The bed alarms should have a system that reports to multiple people in the instances where the notified healthcare provider may be busy. The addition of a unique feature that tells nurses to take regular inspections in the high-risk patients can also contribute to the prevention of patient falls in hospitals and other healthcare facilities (Godshall, 2016).
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