Emergency Department - Community Partnership to Coordinate Older Adults Falls Prevention Programs

Abstract

Falls and injurious falls are common causes for emergency department visits in older adults. Prior literature describing ED care of older adults has focused on the patients' injuries and their ED care. There is a gap in the literature describing communitybased falls prevention strategies and interventions deployed by community organizations, beyond health systems. We identified variation in approaches to older adults among paramedic programs from one community to the next within Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. We also noted no organized falls prevention program spanning all communities, emergency departments and health systems in the county. We describe the implementation of the Milwaukee County Falls Prevention Coalition. We document participation in the coalition, the dissemination of a fall’s prevention toolkit, and participation in outreach events. We document baseline falls rates, as an outcome measure which we will track over time. Emergency Department Community programs can be implemented with the goal to prevent falls for older adults. Next steps include refining the falls prevention strategy and setting county-wide targets for reduction in falls rates based on implementation of targeted fall prevention interventions.