Falls in the hospital: An Italian clinical risk management perspective

Background Hospital falls are a frequent sentinel event worldwide, yet prevention remains challenging. There is a need to standardize hospital fall management in healthcare facilities. This study aimed to analyze policies and procedures used by Italian healthcare facilities to reduce hospital falls. Methods The Italian hospitals’ public procedures on patients’ falls issued between November 2011 and June 2022 were retrieved by a web search using the Google search engine and further evaluated according to their compliance with the 2011 Italian Ministerial recommendation for the prevention of patients’ falls. Results We found 37 official online procedures, of which 45.6% showed full compliance with the 2011 Ministerial recommendation. All the documents explicitly addressed the issue of identifying patient-related fall risk profiles, whereas 28 set appropriate environmental risk factors. More than 80% of the retrieved procedures used the Conley scale. Forty-three percent of the procedures did not provide for national monitoring and reporting of patient falls. Conclusions Public procedures for preventing patient falls in Italian hospitals are scarcely compliant with the 2011 Ministerial recommendation. Local monitoring, compliance, and reporting of hospital falls are needed to improve patient outcomes and reduce the risk of litigation for staff and organizations. Additionally, standardized tools for evaluating the risk of falls, healthcare professionals’ training, and implementing environmental prevention strategies are needed to contrast this issue.