Falls Network

Reducing the incidence and impact of falls in hospital settings

Falls are a leading cause of preventable harm and suffering across community, hospital and residential aged-care settings.

As part of our collaboration with Melbourne Academic Centre for Health (MACH) and Monash Partners Academic Health Science Centre, Western Alliance has been involved in establishing the ‘Victorian Falls Prevention Alliance.’ The purpose of the alliance is to work collaboratively with clinicians, researchers, consumers and health services to reduce falls and falls injuries in hospitals. This work is overseen by a committee made up of researchers, clinicians and consumers.

Our first event for 2022 will be our annual forum on Friday 6 May, which will be free to access for employees of Western Alliance member organisations. To find out more about the alliance via our inaugural newsletter, and to register for the forum please click here.

Previous Falls Network Events

An inaugural falls prevention workshop held in March 2021 attracted almost 300 participants across Victoria. The workshop presented the latest research in hospital-based falls prevention and provided an opportunity for discussion around challenges and opportunities to work collaboratively to prevent falls in Victorian hospitals.

Seminar key messages:

• The need to assess patient’s needs in relation to falls prevention interventions at an individual level.
• There is research available about how to prevent falls but we need to translate the evidence into practice by working together. Consider the UK NICE guideline and pathway.
• Tailoring our approaches to individual context and using co-production as a means to work in partnership with clinical providers and researchers.
• Many falls prevention activates have weak or little evidence of effectiveness. It may be better to focus on disinvestment of some activities and consider stronger evidence-based interventions such as structured patient education.
• Falls prevention when a person has dementia requires thinking outside the box, and consideration of innovative methods.

 

To find out more about this initiative please contact Drew Aras: drew.aras@westernalliance.org.au