Who We Are
The North West LHIN-Wide Falls Prevention Collaborative
The North West LHIN-Wide Falls Prevention Collaborative brings together multiple organizations and programs to provide a comprehensive, community-wide approach to reduce falls and fall injuries and increase restraint-free care for seniors.
Problem: Falls Injuries are a major source of Hospitalizations and Emergency Room Visits. The North has the highest rates of falls injuries in the province. Seniors are particularly vulnerable to fall injuries resulting in death and permanent disabilities. The current rate of falls and injuries in seniors threatens to overwhelm the system.
Hip fractures are a leading cause of admission to long term care in Ontario.
Goal: To reduce falls and falls injuries in seniors over age 65 years in the North West LHIN
Project Objectives:
1. Utilize a community engagement strategy to build a coalition of organizations committed to fall injury prevention in seniors.
2. Form a multi-organizational Quality Improvement Collaborative Utilizing the Rapid Cycle Method of Improvement using Plan – Do – Study – Act cycles with health care providers across the continuum of care.
3. Develop a common method of data collection across member organizations to monitor falls rates and evaluate interventions that prevent falls and reduce fall injuries.
4. Increase awareness of fall risks, the multi-factorial causes of falls and ways to minimize falls and fall injuries to seniors, their families and staff.
5. Promote the identification and screening of high risk seniors within participating organizations.
6. Implement best practices in member organizations for preventing and reducing fall injuries.
Falls Injury Prevention Collaborative: The Falls Collaborative was formed comprising 35 teams, representing 26 organizations and programs across Northwestern Ontario. The Collaborative includes acute, community and long-term health care settings. “Collaboratives” are initiatives that bring Quality Improvement (QI) teams together to share their experiences in using QI science to implement best practices for quality. The Collaborative developed specific measurable aims, describing the desired outcomes at the end of 3-year period. The following process and outcome measurements are collected: Risk Assessments, implemented interventions, restraints, education, falls and severity of injuries.
The teams are supported by a cohesive system that provides optimal performance outcomes on core internationally recognized indicators of quality, and these results are the best in Canada and comparable to leading jurisdictions in the world. These organizations have access to tools and resources that are created to build and support a strong culture of quality improvement in the region.
Quality Improvement: Thirty-five Falls Collaborative teams can reap major gains in quality by applying QI science across the continuum of care. The science of QI empowers and trains teams to set goals for improvement; identify root causes, barriers to quality, system flaws; try out various ideas for improving the delivery of care in multiple brief, small experiments of change (PDSA’s); conduct frequent targeted measurement of quality to get instant feedback to determine if changes have the desired effect.
Coalition: All Long Term Care Homes and ELDCAP Hospitals in the North West LHIN and all twelve regional hospitals committed to this two-year Collaborative. This translates into broad coalition of support and shared ownership by over 80% of health care facilities and communities in the North West LHIN.
Public Awareness: The public awareness campaign focuses on 7 areas of fall prevention including:
Nutrition, Vision, Medications, Activity, Environment, Footwear and Previous Falls.
