Patient’s Fall Risk Assessment

One of the common risk to safety of patients in hospital is the risk of fall. Several epidemiological studies has found that on an average 3 to 5 patient fall incidence occur in every 1000 bed-days. It is also estimated that a third of fall results into injuries which could be severe such as fracture. Due to the widespread prevalence and resulting harm, prevention of patient fall is included as one of the International Patient Safety Goals (IPSG) of JCI standards for hospitals.

The first step to prevention of fall is identifying patient who is at a risk of fall. Most accreditation bodies, including NABH and JCI expects hospital to undertake a fall risk assessment of all admitted patient and take preventive measures for those who are at a higher risk of fall.

The table below describes the points that should be used for assessing risk of fall, and classifies features into very high, high, moderate and low risk categories.

11 Conditions that a hospital must fulfil in-order to participate in JCI accreditation process

Before even going into JCI accreditation standards a hospital must look into these essential conditions or requirements, if it is planning to go for JCI accreditation. Hospitals not fulfilling any of these conditions are at risk of accreditation being denied. JCI assesses these conditions, in addition to standards, for both first time applicant hospital as well as already-accredited hospitals. For first time applicant hospitals, these conditions are assessed during the initial survey and for already accredited hospitals, it is assessed throughout the accreditation period, through on-site surveys, the Strategic Improvement Plan submitted by hospital, and through periodic updates that JCI receives from these hospitals.

The requirements given below are referred from 'JCI accreditation standards for hospitals, 6th Edition'

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    1.       Data and information required by JCI must be submitted in timely manner by the hospital.

There are many data and information, which includes things like information asked in application (electronic application), annual updates to be made in application, Strategic Improvement Plan, major changes in hospital etc.  These must be submitted within the agreed time-frame.