Fall Prevention and Injury Reduction Utilizing Continuous Video Monitoring: A Quality Improvement Initiative

Reduction of falls and fall-related injuries in hospital patients remains a priority. Consideration of technology via continuous video monitoring (CVM) is relevant for safe, quality care with favorable cost implications.

Although fall rates were in the acceptable national safety standard guidelines, interventions were explored with the aim to further decrease falls using CVM.

The quality improvement project collected descriptive statistics. Run charts portrayed data trends for falls and injuries in 2-week increments over a 6-month period.

Two-way cameras and a virtual sitter were used to observe fall risk patients.

Implementation of CVM with virtual sitters depicted a 14% decline in fall rates and a 6% decrease in fall-related injury rates with positive budget implications.

Cost savings, fall rates, and fall injury rates all improved with the inception of video monitoring.