Fall risk management using clinical decision support in a rural nursing-led primary care practice

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Primary Care Medicine
• Quality Improvement

Background:

• Unintentional falls are a major cause of injury in older adults.
• Implementing fall risk management in primary care is difficult in low-resource settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To integrate an evidence-based fall risk management tool into a rural nurse-managed primary care practice.
• To address a care gap in fall risk management adherence to guidelines.

Main Methods:

• A quality improvement project developed and tested a standardized fall risk management process with a clinical decision support (CDS) tool.
• The tool was implemented in two phases within a rural health clinic setting.

Main Results:

• Integrating the fall risk management tool did not disrupt the primary care workflow.
• Daily vitamin D supplementation was the most frequent intervention recommended for patients at risk of falling.

Conclusions:

• It is feasible to implement a brief fall risk management decision support tool in rural, nurse-managed primary care practices.
• This approach can improve adherence to fall prevention guidelines.