The 6th floor Medicine Unit staff had a meeting about the number of falls on the unit. Fiscal year to date, we had 14 falls. The staff gathered together and discussed what was and wasn't being done on the unit. Collectively the team decided to focus on three main areas to prevent additional falls and implement a peer-to-peer accountability model. The staff chose No Pass Zone, 100% bathroom stay, and hourly rounding, as the biggest areas to improve upon.
The peer-to-peer accountability model was developed from recent literature and then presented as an EBP project to the EBP council. This project aims to provide high-quality care by preventing falls and creating a network of support with the team of staff working each shift. This project was developed as a solution to a large number of falls and will continue to prevent falls in the future. This saves the lives of patients, prevents staff injury, and will help to decrease the length of stay and resource utilization associated with patient falls.

This project is focused on what is right for the patient and focused on preventing falls. This project is innovative because we are taking the latest evidence to implement a partnership process for the team. The peer-to-peer accountability piece is a new model for the team but everyone is excited.

Accountability is naturally baked into this project. We have devised audits to keep tabs on how we are progressing but also each team lead took ownership of teaching their teams on what peer-to-peer accountability is and how it is our new model on the unit. This empowers the staff to set high expectations and hold each other to those high standards.

Collaborative- this project empowers the staff to work together to answer all patient requests in a timely manner regardless of whose patient it might be. The project represents respect. We started off digging into the problem then the staff developed their biggest concerns. The peer-to-peer teaching was held in boot camps with perfect attendance.

During the boot camps, we talked about the “why” of the project, defined peer-to-peer accountability, and worked out the skills for Language of Caring on talking to our peers about accountability.

After the boot camps, the team leads had staff assigned to them. The team leads ensured that their teams had all questions answered about the project and fully understood what peer-to-peer accountability was and how to hold each other to that standard in a respectful manner.

The goal is to decrease falls but we have had zero falls since the initial meeting. This aims for zero falls, which is in line with our results and safety-focused environments.

Team members were selected based on Safety coach assignments; staff that is known to be proactive in doing what is right, and availability to attend the initial meeting.

To date, we have had zero falls since our first meeting. The goal will be to continue at zero falls.
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Team Members honored with this DAISY TEAM Award:
Caroline Nsofor, RN
Akudo Olewe, RN
Lidwin Machado, RN
Anietie (Ann) Obot, RN
Marie (Tonette) Trujillo, RN
Carrol Villacorte, RN
Nicole Edwards, PCA
Aderonke (Ronke) Onile-Ere, PCA
Antonieta Duremdes, RN
Madge Golding, RN
Raquel Sacramed, RN
Dorothy Ogbonna, PCA
Toyin Olatunji, PCA
Neckia Daniels, PCA
Olga Hedman, PCA
Claudette Reid, RN