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Fall Prevention: Guidance on Nursing Home Falls and Legal Liability

Falls are a leading cause of injury in nursing homes. Because of this, nursing homes, and especially nurses who have direct care responsibilities, have a duty to help protect residents from falling. However, any failure to do this, can make the facility and nursing staff responsible for injuries caused by falling. Not every resident fall is preventable, and not every injurious fall will lead to a lawsuit. But if the nursing staff fails to take reasonable steps to prevent falls from occurring, that can lead to negligence claims. Resident falls are presently responsible for a large number of lawsuits against nursing homes. The purpose of this course is to provide facilities and nursing staff with guidance on the best ways to prevent resident falls, while at the same time, avoiding legal liability.

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Objectives

Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to:

Identify common causes of falling/risks for falls.
Explain the fall prevention process.
Recognize the risk of legal liability in nursing homes.
State areas of nursing liability.
Determine liability issues with the utilization of restraints, side rails, and fall or position change alarms.
Discuss liability concerns related to incident reports, charting and documentation.

Curriculum

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Risk of Legal Liability

Chapter 3: Areas of Nursing Liability

Chapter 4: Fall Prevention Process

Chapter 5: Avoiding Legal Liability

Chapter 6: Specific Liability Topics

Chapter 7: Incident Reports, Charting and Documentation

Chapter 8: Case Study

Summary
References
California Bill 241
Implicit Bias in Healthcare
What is Implicit Bias?
Implications of Implicit Bias in Healthcare
How to Reduce Implicit Bias

Price: $10.00

Contact Hour: 1

Course Author

Rein Tideiksaar

Rein Tideiksaar, PhD, PA-C, or Dr. Rein as he is commonly referred to, is the president of Fall Prevent, LLC, Blackwood, New Jersey, a consulting company that provides educational, legal, and marketing services related to fall prevention in the elderly.

Dr. Tideiksaar is a gerontologist, which is a health care professional who specializes in working with elderly patients, and a geriatric physician's assistant. He has been active in the area of fall prevention for over thirty years.

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Course Accreditation

See our Accreditation Statements page to view our accreditation information.