Research Article
Use of Root Cause Analysis to Prevent Falls and Promote Patient Safety in Clinical Rehabilitation
| Shih-Hui Wu1 and Ru-Lan Hsieh2,3* | |
| 1Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Cardinal Tien Hospital, Taiwan | |
| 2Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital, Taiwan | |
| 3School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan | |
| Corresponding Author : | Ru-Lan Hsieh Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Shin-Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital, No. 95 Wen-Chung Rd, Shih-Lin District, Taipei 111, Taiwan Tel: +866-228332211 Fax: +866-228389319 E-mail: M001052@ms.skh.org.tw |
| Received March 22, 2013; Accepted April 09, 2013; Published April 11, 2013 | |
| Citation: Wu SH, Hsieh RL (2013) Use of Root Cause Analysis to Prevent Falls and Promote Patient Safety in Clinical Rehabilitation. J Nov Physiother 3:132.doi: 10.4172/2165-7025.1000132 | |
| Copyright: © 2013 Wu SH, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. | |
Abstract
Objective: To apply to explore the causes of patient falls and determine the implement procedures to prevent them.
Design: Root Cause Analysis was conducted retrospectively using comprehensive error review to discover and correct the causes of errors.
Setting: Physical medicine and rehabilitation department in a medical center in Taiwan. Interventions: We used causal trees to clarify possible reasons for patient falls, including the patients’ personal characteristics, factors pertaining to the interactions among the medical team, the team’s workload and level of training, and the quality of communication between medical staff and the patient. In advance, Root Cause Analysis was analyzed by using reactive barriers for each factor.
Main outcome measures: Incidence and complications of patient falls before and after Root Cause Analysis.
Results: No patient falls occurred during the first 6 months after implementing the measures identified in the analysis. Two falls occurred after 6 months, but the patients were both assisted promptly and suffered no injuries. The annual incidence of falls decreased from 4.8 per 100,000 subjects to 1.9 and 0.9 in the next two years of follow up, respectively.
Conclusion: The application of root cause analysis in the setting of clinical rehabilitation did not completely prevent falls. However, the incidence and complication of falls were reduced. Therefore, it is worthwhile to promote application of Root Cause Analysis to clinical rehabilitation treatment to enhance the quality of patient safety in the future.
