The Cost of Serious Patient Fall-Related Injuries at Hospitals in Turkey: A Matched Case-Control Study

Abstract

Patient falls cause economic loss in hospitals, as well as patient injuries. This study aimed to calculate the additional hospital cost and length of stay (LOS) due to fall-related serious injuries and to identify the determining factors for both outcomes. A matched case-control design was used in the study. It was conducted with a case group of 39 patients and a control group of 39 patients in 28 hospitals in İzmir, Turkey. The additional hospital cost and LOS due to fall-related serious injuries were calculated to be US$3,302.60 and 14.61 days, respectively. Precautionary initiatives for the injurious falls can prevent patients from getting injured and avoid increases in cost and LOS due to these injuries.

Keywords

patient falls cost hospital nurse

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anderson

Dolansky

Damato

E. G.

Jones

K. R.

(2014). Predictors of serious fall injury in hospitalized patients. Clinical Nursing Research, 24, 269-283. doi:10.1177/1054773814530758

Bates

D. W.

Pruess

Souney

Platt

(1995). Serious falls in hospitalized patients: Correlates and resource utilization. The American Journal of Medicine, 99, 137-143.

Bennet

Dealey

Posnett

(2004). The cost of pressure ulcers in the UK. Age and Ageing, 33, 230-235.

Bouldin

E. D.

Andresen

E. M.

Dunton

N. E.

Simon

Waters

T. M.

Liu

. . . Shorr

M. D.

(2013). Falls among, adult patients hospitalized in the United States: Prevalence and trends. Journal of Patient Safety, 9, 13-17.

Central Bank of Republic of Turkey. (2015). Indicative exchange rates. Retrieved from http://www.tcmb.gov.tr/wps/wcm/connect/tcmb+tr/tcmb+tr/main+menu/istatistikler/doviz+kurlari/gosterge+niteligindeki+merkez+bankasi+kurlarii

Central Bank of Republic of Turkey. (2016). Consumer price index. Retrieved from http://evds.tcmb.gov.tr/anaweb/enflasyonTR.html

Charlson

M. E.

Charlson

R. E.

Peterson

J. C.

Marinopoulos

S. S.

Briggs

W. M.

Hollenberg

J. P.

(2008). The Charlson Comorbidity Index is adapted to predict costs of chronic disease in primary care patients. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 61, 1234-1240. doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2008.01.006

Charlson

M. E.

Popel

Ales

K. L.

MacKenzie

C. R.

(1987). A new method of classifying prognostic comorbidity in longitudinal studies: Development and validation. Journal of Chronic Diseases, 40, 373-383.

Degelau

Belz

Bungum

Flavin

P. L.

Harper

Leys

. . . Webb

(2012). Prevention of falls (acute care). Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement. Retrieved from https://www.icsi.org/_asset/dcn15z/Falls-Interactive0412.pdf

10.

Dunne

T. J.

Gaboury

Ashe

M. C.

(2014). Falls in hospital increase length of stay regardless of degree of harm. Journal of Evaluation Clinical Practice, 20, 396-400. doi:10.1111/jep.12144

11.

Fields

Alturkistani

Kumar

Kanuri

Salem

D. N.

Munn

Blazey-Martin

(2015). Prevalence and cost of imaging in inpatient falls: The rising cost of falling. ClinicoEconomics and Outcomes Research, 3, 281-286. doi:10.2147/CEOR.S80104

12.

Hassan

Tuckman

H. P.

Patrick

R. H.

Kountz

D. S.

Kohn

J. L.

(2010). Cost of hospital-acquired infection. Hospital Topics, 88, 82-89. doi:10.1080/00185868.2010.507124

13.

Hensher

Max

Adomakoh

(2006). Referral hospitals. In Jamison

D. T.

et al . (Eds.), Disease control priorities in developing countries (pp. 1229-1243). Washington, DC: World Bank. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/management/referralhospitals.pdf

14.

Hignett

Sands

Griffiths

(2013). In-patient falls: What can we learn from incident reports? Age and Aging, 42, 527-531. doi:10.1093/ageing/aft058

15.

Hill

K. D.

Walsh

(2007). Falls in the acute hospital setting-impact on resource utilisation. Australian Health Review, 31, 471-477.

16.

Hirose

Nakabayashi

Fukuda

Yamaguchi

Igawa

Egami

. . . Shima

(2015). Additional medical costs due to hospital-acquired falls. Journal of Patient Safety. Advance online publication. Retrieved from http://journals.lww.com/journalpatientsafety/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=9000&issue=00000&article=99646&type=abstract

17.

Miettinen

O. S.

(1969). Individual matching with multiple controls in the case of all-or-none responses. Biometrics, 22, 339-355.

18.

Morello

R. T.

Barker

A. L.

Watts

J. J.

Haines

Zavarsek

S. S.

Hill

K. D.

. . . Stoelwinder

J. U.

(2015). The extra resource burden of in-hospital falls: A cost of falls study. Medical Journal of Australia, 203, 367.

19.

National Quality Forum. (2004). National voluntary consensus standards for nursing-sensitive care: An initial performance measure set (A consensus report). Retrieved from https://www.qualityforum.org/Publications/2004/10/Nursing_Sensitive_04_full.aspx

20.

Nurmi

Lüthje

(2002). Incidence and cost of falls and fall injuries among elderly in institutional care. Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care, 20, 118-122.

21.

Patil

Parcells

Balsted

Chamberiain

R. S.

(2012). Surgical outcome following hip fracture in patients 100 years old: Will they ever walk again? Surgical Science, 3, 554-559. doi:10.4236/ss.2012.311109

22.

Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health. (2016). ICD-10 Turkish Version of 10th Revision of Diseases and Health Problems International Classification. Retrieved from http://www.saglik.gov.tr/EN/belge/2-96/icd-10-turkish-version-of-10th-revision-of-diseases-and-.html

23.

Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health. (2015). Hospital Service Quality Standarts. Retrieved from https://kalite.saglik.gov.tr/content/files/duyurular_2011/2011/2014/sks_hastane_versiyon_5_08.07.2015.pdf

24.

Republic of Turkey Social Security Institution. (2016). Health Practices Notification. Retrieved from http://www.sgk.gov.tr/wps/portal/sgk/tr/kurumsal/merkez-teskilati/ana_hizmet_birimleri/gss_genel_mudurlugu/anasayfa_duyurular/18062016_guncel_sut

25.

Shreve

Van Den Bos

Gray

Halford

Rustagi

Ziemkiewicz

(2010). The economic measurement of medical errors. Society of Actuaries. Retrieved from https://www.soa.org/files/research/projects/research-econ-measurement.pdf

26.

Spetz

Brown

D. S.

Aydin

(2015). The economics of preventing hospital falls: Demonstrating ROI through a simple model. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 45, 50-57.

27.

Staggs

V. S.

Mion

L. C.

Shorr

R. I.

(2014). Assisted and unassisted falls: Different events, different outcomes, different implications for quality of hospital care. Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 40, 358-364.

28.

Stollenwerk

Waldeyer

Klein-Meding

Müller

Stock

(2014). Cost effectiveness of external hip protectors in the hospital setting: A modeling study. Nursing Economics, 32, 89-98.

29.

Van Den Bos

Rustagi

Gray

Halford

Ziemkiewicz

Shreve

. (2011). The $17.1 billion problem: The annual cost of measurable medical errors. Health Affairs (Millwood), 30, 596-603. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2011.0084

30.

Wong

C. A.

Recktenwald

A. J.

Jones

M. L.

Waterman

B. M.

Bollini

M. L.

Dunagan

W. C.

(2011). The cost of serious fall-related injuries at three Midwestern hospitals. Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 37, 81-87.

31.

Zecevic

A. A.

Chesworth

B. M.

Zaric

G. S.

Huang

Salmon

McAuslan

. . . Brunton

(2012). Estimating the cost of serious injurious falls in a Canadian acute care hospital. Canadian Journal on Aging, 31, 139-147. doi:10.1017/S0714980812000037