"Fear of falling": How hospitals do even more harm by keeping patients in bed
SalonDorothy Twigg was living on her own, cooking and walking without help until a dizzy spell landed her in the emergency room. Still, Covinsky said that policy has created “a climate of fear of falling,” where nurses “feel that if somebody falls on their watch, they’ll be blamed for it.” The result, he said, is “patients are told not to move,” and they don’t get the help they need. Nancy Foster, the AHA’s vice president of quality and patient safety policy, said these policy changes sent “a strong signal to the hospital field about things CMS expected us to be paying attention to.” Limiting patient mobility “certainly is a potential unintended consequence,” she said. They’re getting people up and moving.” While hospitals are required to report falls, they don’t typically track how often patients get up or move. Barbara King, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing, studied how nurses responded to “intense messaging” from hospitals about preventing falls after the 2008 CMS policy change.
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"I feel like I’m in jail": Hospital alarms torment patients
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