IPRO Monthly Falls Tracking Form

The Monthly Falls Tracking form was developed to assist facilities with tracking patient falls on a monthly basis.

This form is provided in Excel format. Please note that many of the components of the file are protected in an effort to maintain the functionality of the program and prevent unintended changes by a new user.

All data is entered only on the Falls Data Sheet tab of the file. This file integrates general falls information along with post fall evaluation components in an effort to track and trend the various elements of each fall.

The process is simple; open the file and save it to your computer in its present form as a master file. At the start of each month, the master file should be opened and utilized to enter new data and saved with a file name that is easily recognizable. A suggested naming convention for your file is "ABC Facility-June 2007." The assigned file name will appear as a header on every sheet and graph of the file for easy identification.

There are six integrated sheets within the file that automatically summarize specific elements of all tracked falls and provide easy-to-read graphical representations of those summaries.

Some of the trended items include:

Total Falls Tracked for the Month
Falls Occurring Within 30 Days of Admit/ReAdmit (automatically identified)
Falls Resulting in Injury
Falls with Proper Risk Assessment
Falls with Restraint in Use
Falls by Day of the Week
Falls by Shift
Falls by Time (24 hours split into 10 key time frames)
Falls by Location
Falls by Prior Activity
Falls by Injury Type as well as Treatment Location

There is also a summarization sheet and graph of all tracked falls by Potential Causal Factors as referred to in the AMDA's Clinical Practice Guideline: Falls and Fall Risk. The evaluation components offer suggestions for both fall risk and the subsequent post fall evaluation process.

Once a user becomes comfortable with this easy-to-use tracking file, there are additional opportunities for trending with simple instruction. All of the monthly data may be sorted in any way you desire and may be isolated by unit with all associated summaries and graphs specific to each unit. This drill-down of your data is relatively easy to accomplish.

If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact an IPRO NHQI Team Member (www.ipro.org/nhqi).