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Implementation of the Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths, and Injuries Initiative in Primary Care: An Outcome Evaluation
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November 16 2019
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Source: Gerontologist. 59(6):1182-1191
Details:
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Alternative Title:Gerontologist
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Description:Background and Objectives:
Older adult falls pose a growing burden on the U.S. health care system. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths, and Injuries (STEADI) initiative was developed as a multifactorial approach to fall prevention that includes screening for fall risk, assessing for modifiable risk factors, and prescribing evidence-based interventions to reduce fall risk. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of a STEADI initiative on medically treated falls within a large health care system in Upstate New York.
Research Design and Methods:
This cohort study classified older adults who were screened for fall risk into 3 groups: (a) At-risk and no Fall Plan of Care (FPOC), (b) At-risk with a FPOC, and (c) Not-at-risk. Poisson regression examined the group’s effect on medically treated falls when controlling for other variables. The sample consisted of 12,346 adults age 65 or older who had a primary care visit at one of 14 outpatient clinics between September 11, 2012, and October 30, 2015. A medically treated fall was defined as a fall-related treat-and-release emergency department visit or hospitalization.
Results:
Older adults at risk for fall with a FPOC were 0.6 times less likely to have a fall-related hospitalization than those without a FPOC (p = .041), and their postintervention odds were similar to those who were not at risk.
Discussion and Implications:
This study demonstrated that implementation of STEADI fall risk screening and prevention strategies among older adults in the primary care setting can reduce fall-related hospitalizations and may lower associated health care expenditures.
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Pubmed ID:30239774
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Pubmed Central ID:PMC6625936
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