Clouds of a Falls Prevention Strategy a la Denton Welch...

The purpose of my Q-TIPPS blog is to discuss quality issues and continuous quality improvement (CQI) initiatives in the healthcare sector. Therefore, I will make every effort to apply CQI principles in my discussions. I welcome and encourage your ideas, suggestions, comments, and feedback.

I was humoured by a comment posted under the alias of Denton Welch to my first blog. The author self-proclaimed him/herself to be persnickety and rightfully so, as I recall the “My name is Joe” lyrics to be the same as his/her recollection. I must admit that I retrieved the lyrics that I posted from the ‘everything’ website: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1332352.

While Denton is considered a great miniaturist in English literature, he unfortunately never reached the ‘Mr. Darcy’ status of Jane Austen. Unlike the characters depicted in Austen or Denton’s novels, I have not had the privilege or luxury of picnicking in fields, looking round country churches, or exploring the overgrown parks of once grand houses. I have one similarity with Denton as a bicycle also hit and injured me. I suffered an open triple compound fracture, unlike Denton's outcome, I am not lame and I lived.

This brings me to the Patient Safety Movement...This movement has gained incredible momentum throughout Britain, Australia, U.S.A & Canada. The Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation (CCHSA) and the Joint Commission have made “Falls Prevention” a required organizational practice for accredited organizations.

Ironically in Denton’s novel ‘A Voice through a Cloud’ patient falls and the healthcare practitioner’s poor response/action were alive and well in 1950 and suggests that the healthcare sector has taken far too long to address this serious issue.

“One day a specialist was in the ward, examining a patient, when the patient fell down in front of him in a fit. The patient was a fat middle-aged man; he shrieked and trembled and rolled on the floor, as if he were wallowing in mud. It was a terrifying and grotesque sight, but the specialist watched it with a smile on his face. He neither raised the patient up nor prevented him from cutting his head on the corner of the bedside locker.

When at last the convulsions had subsided and the patient, with blood on his face, looked up bewildered, the specialist's smile grew even more Buddhistic and bland and he said in a fluting voice, so that other people should hear, 'Well, I must say there's one improvement this week - you're falling so much more gracefully!’ “

Thumbs down to the ‘specialist’. ‘High fives' to CCHSA & The Joint Commission for moving the patient safety strategy forward. Finally, ‘thank you Denton’, for telling it like it is. Sadly, falls are still relevant on the eve of 2008. There is no room in healthcare for falling gracefully.

P.S.

Alias, I like your hat!