Nursing Basics: Patient Safety and Fall Prevention

Vocabulary flashcards covering hospital safety, fall prevention measures, post-fall clinical actions, and legal/clinical guidelines for applying and monitoring restraints.

The Joint Commission

The organization responsible for evaluating and accrediting health-care organizations and programs in the United States, which establishes the National Patient Safety Goals.

National Patient Safety Goals

A set of national standards established by The Joint Commission addressing specific hospital safety issues, such as identifying patients correctly, improving communication, using medications and alarms safely, and preventing infections.

Two Patient Identifiers

A safety requirement used to eliminate potential medical errors by verifying at least two points of identification (patient name, date of birth, medical record number, or picture) before administering care or procedures.

Ambulate

A clinical term meaning to walk.

Fall Assessment Rating Scale

A standardized form completed upon admission that assigns a numerical score to a patient's risk for falling, where a higher score denotes greater risk and initiates specific safety precautions.

Restraint Alternatives

Less restrictive protective measures and devices—such as bed monitors, chair monitors, and leg monitors—used to remind patients not to get up unsafely and to alert nursing staff when they attempt to do so.

Position Alarm

A pressure-sensitive bed or chair monitor device that emits an alert at the nurses' station when a patient's weight is no longer detected, signaling an attempt to stand or ambulate.

Leg Monitor

A type of chair monitor that fastens to a patient's leg like a large bandage and triggers an alarm at the nurses' station when the leg enters a dependent position.

Hypervigilant

A state of being excessively attentive to sensory stimuli, derived from the prefix hyper- (excessive) and vigilant (attentive to stimuli).

Side Rail Entrapment

A severe safety risk where a patient's head or chest becomes trapped between the mattress and bed rails or between bed rail bars, seen most often in older, frail patients with confusion, pain, fecal impaction, or urinary retention.

Physical Assessment Signs of Hip Fracture

Clinical indications observed during post-fall assessment characterized by one leg appearing shorter than the other and being rotated outward.

Least Restrictive Environment

A hospital safety standard mandating that patients only be restrained in the minimum manner absolutely necessary to protect them from harm, after all alternatives have failed.

Restraint Order

A physician-signed order required prior to placing physical restraints, specifying the date, time initiated, type, location, prior alternatives attempted, clinical reason, and duration (typically not exceeding 24 hours).

Thirty-Minute Restraint Check

A regulatory safety check required every 30 minutes while a patient is restrained to assess skin integrity for redness or chafing and evaluate extremity warmth and color.

Two-Hour Restraint Release

A mandatory procedure occurring every 2 hours where restraints are completely removed to offer fluids, assist with toileting, reposition, assess extremities for edema, capillary refill, sensation, and function, check pressure points, and ambulate if appropriate.

False Imprisonment

A legal charge a nurse may face if a patient placed in physical restraints is not released every 2 hours as mandated by facility policies and regulatory standards.

Chemical Restraint

A medication prescribed and used judiciously by a health-care provider to manage restlessness and anxiety in a patient whose condition would otherwise present an immediate safety hazard.

Quick-Release Knot

The only acceptable knot used to secure physical restraints to furniture or a movable bed frame, designed to be untied instantly in an emergency.

Vest Restraint

A physical jacket restraint fitted with the crossover in the front, with straps fastened securely to the wheelchair frame or the movable portion of the bed frame (never to the bed rails) to prevent a patient from climbing out.