Reducing Hospital Falls by Empowering Nurses to Provide Ambulatory Aids

Reducing Hospital Falls by Empowering Nurses to Provide Ambulatory Aids: A Randomized Controlled Trial

This project proposes to evaluate the potential for nurses to assess if a patient who uses an ambulatory aid at home is fit to use one in the hospital, and the effect that providing ambulatory aids to hospitalized patients will have on reducing hospital falls, with a matched pair cluster-randomized controlled trial.

Hypothesis 1: Of the patients who use an ambulatory aid at home, patients who receive an ambulatory aid in the hospital will have a lower fall rate as compared to patients who do not receive an ambulatory aid in the hospital.

Hypothesis 2: After adequate training, nurses will be able to accurately assess whether or not patients need an ambulatory aid when compared to the gold-standard assessments of physical therapists.

Study Overview

• Status: Terminated
• Conditions: Harm Reduction; Accidental Falls
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Fall Prevention Decision Support

Detailed Description

This research project proposes to study the effectiveness of a specific falls prevention intervention in a high risk population by providing ambulatory aids upon admission to the hospital to patients who previously used one at home after a standardized evaluation by a Registered Nurse. This will be a randomized controlled trial within three hospitals in a large academic medical center.

Primary Objectives:

Specific Aim 1: Evaluate the effectiveness in preventing falls by providing an ambulatory aid to patients who use an ambulatory aid at home, and who are deemed fit to use the device in the hospital by their nurse.

Specific Aim 2: Evaluate the nurses' ability to assess the appropriateness of providing an ambulatory aid, such as a cane or walker, to a patient who uses an assistive device at home.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 900
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • New York
    • New York, New York, United States, 10467
      • Montefiore Medical Center

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• any one determined to be in need of walking aid and
• Can stand up from a seated position independently without assistance
• Can use ambulatory aid at home without assistance/supervision
• Can sit up in bed AND rise to a standing position independently

Exclusion Criteria:

• Not able to give consent
• Not able to use ambulatory aid independently

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Control; No change in the standard of care.
Experimental: Fall Prevention Decision Support; Nursing assesses patient using the "Assistive Device Checklist" and provides assistive devices to patients, if appropriate. Decision support aimed at preventing hospital falls and empowering nurses.	Other: Fall Prevention Decision Support; Decision support used by nurses to appropriately provide ambulatory aids to hospitalized patients in order to reduce hospital falls

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Number Falls	Participants's self reported number of falls will be assess at baseline and 6 months after trial.	Baseline and Six months after study

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Montefiore Medical Center
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Mary S Ellen Lindros, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): May 1, 2015
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 1, 2015
• Study Completion (Actual): December 1, 2015

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 7, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 14, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): September 18, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): May 10, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 8, 2023
• Last Verified: May 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Fall Prevention; Assistive Devices; Hospital Acquired Conditions; Nurse Education
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2013-2984

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No