Working collaboratively to reduce falls
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Welcome to the inaugural newsletter of the Victorian Falls Prevention Alliance.
Falls in hospitals are the most frequent clinical risk and can have serious consequences for patients. We all want to reduce hospital falls, but we know it is not an easy problem to solve.
The purpose of the Victorian Falls Prevention 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.
The committee developed following the success of a workshop in March 2021, which was attended by almost 300 participants. Feedback from the workshop is being used to plan a series of activities which will be rolled out over the coming months. We will provide regular newsletters to keep you updated on our activities, current evidence and other relevant information and resources.
The Victorian Falls Prevention Alliance is part of The Victorian Research Translation Centre Collaborative between the two NHMRC-accredited Victorian translation centres (Monash Partners Academic Health Science Centre, Melbourne Academic Centre for Health, and the Western Alliance Academic Health Science Centre). These centres bring together clinicians and researchers from many health services and Universities around Victoria to contribute to Victorian health care and improve health outcomes.
It is our hope that the Victorian Falls Prevention Alliance provides clinicians, researchers, managers and policy makers with the opportunity to work together so we can support the implementation of falls prevention programs which are based on the best available evidence, identify gaps in the evidence and conduct well-designed research to address these gaps.
Our first event for 2022 will be our annual forum on Friday May 6. Click here to subscribe and receive further details.
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Kind regards,
Associate Professor Cathy Said
Chair
Victorian Falls Prevention Alliance
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*Data from the AIHW hospital admitted patient care reports.
Falls and fall related injuries have both increased in Australian hospitals.
Despite quality improvement interventions for falls there appears to be little improvement in the number of falls, is it time to re-look at the evidence?
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Meet our committee members
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Associate Professor Cathy Said, Chair of the Victorian Falls Prevention Alliance
Cathy is the Associate Professor Physiotherapy, Western Health and The University of Melbourne and program director with the Australian Institute of Musculoskeletal Science. She has worked for 25 years as a physiotherapist in neurological and aged care rehabilitation. Over these years she has helped people regain their ability to walk following illness/injury.
VIEW A FULL LIST OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS |
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Suggestions, guidelines, evidence, research
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A consumer perspective
Consumer, Margaret Thomas provides her perspective and suggestions on ways to prevent falls in the hospital setting.
Do you have a question about preventing hospital falls? Email your questions HERE.
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Useful guidelines/evidence on hospital falls prevention
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Research roundup
The Australian and New Zealand Falls Prevention Society was held virtually in December 2021. There were some great presentations on falls prevention in hospitals. Congratulations to Professor Meg Morris who received the Best Program Implementation/Service Delivery/Policy Oral Award for her presentation, A case for divesting from hospital FRATS.
MORE
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PhD scholarship
A PhD scholarship is available for a person interested in learning more about research in falls prevention to work as a part of an NHMRC funded project looking at the effectiveness of bed alarms for the prevention of falls in the hospital setting, and the translation of research evidence into practice. For more information contact Professor Terry Haines.
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Save the date: Annual Forum
Date: Friday 6 May
Time: 9am to 1pm
Location: Kenneth Myer Building – Ian Potter Auditorium, University of Melbourne or online
To ensure you secure a spot, subscribe to our mailing list to be notified when registrations open. Please feel free to forward this invitation to your networks.
SUBSCRIBE
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You have been sent this newsletter as you attended our Falls Prevention Workshop or are on the mailing list for communications from Monash Partners. If you do not want to receive any further communications from us please unsubscribe via the link below.
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