Reducing Hospital Falls by Empowering Nurses to Provide Ambulatory Aids

NCT ID: NCT03675503

Last Updated: 2023-05-10

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: TERMINATED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 900 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2015-05-31
• Study Completion Date: 2015-12-31

Brief Summary

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.

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.

Conditions

Accidental Falls; Harm Reduction

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: PREVENTION
• Blinding Strategy: SINGLE

Study Groups

Control

No change in the standard of care.

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

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.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Fall Prevention Decision Support

Intervention Type: OTHER

Decision support used by nurses to appropriately provide ambulatory aids to hospitalized patients in order to reduce hospital falls

Interventions

Fall Prevention Decision Support

Decision support used by nurses to appropriately provide ambulatory aids to hospitalized patients in order to reduce hospital falls

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

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

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 99 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

Montefiore Medical Center

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Mary S Ellen Lindros

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Albert Einstein College of Medicine Montefiore Medical Center

Locations

Montefiore Medical Center

New York, New York, United States

Countries

United States

Other Identifiers

2013-2984

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id