Systems Approach for Preventing Falls in Hospitals and Nursing Homes Using Sensing Devices Surrounding the Patient’s Bed

Abstract

Falls are critical accidents occurring in hospitals and nursing homes. They can reduce the quality of life of care-receivers (patients and elderly persons) and deteriorate the professional duties of care-givers (nurses and care workers). As the initial approach to preventing such falls, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) have been applied around the care-receiver’s bed. For the present study, a system was developed using a tool kit with an AVR microprocessor (Arduino Uno), seven force-sensing resistors, and two human-detection sensors. This system can detect and predict dangerous motions that may lead to a fall. A predicted motion is notified visually and aurally to care-givers and/or care-receivers. The developed system is a technical product, and thus an organizational measurement is also required for preventing falls. As the second approach, the nursing process of care-givers was visualized using process modeling. Two diagrams, process content and state transition diagrams, were generated from daily nursing logs taken at night in both a hospital and a long-term care facility. Although a process content diagram can be used to visualize the nursing process of care-givers, a fall is a non-process type accident. A state transition diagram can thus express the nursing process in a care-receiver centered manner. Whereas care-givers take care of care-receivers early in the night, non-process type accidents may occur after this early period until the following morning. The developed sensing-device based system is useful after the early period of care at night for the prevention of falls.