TAG BUSTERS: FALL PREVENTION FOCUS

Partnering with Nursing: F-Tag 689

Submitted by Tamala Sammons, M.A. CCC-SLP, Sr. Therapy Resource
Federal Tags (F Tags) are the minimal Federal and State Standards of Care that are used to survey Skilled Nursing Facilities as a measure of performance. Rehab Services provides an important role in order to ensure compliance with these standards by having strong systems for IDT collaboration, patient identification, and providing skilled intervention programming.

“Assistance Device or Assistive Device” refers to any item (e.g., fixtures such as handrails, grab bars, and mechanical devices/equipment such as stand-alone or overhead transfer lifts, canes, wheelchairs, and walkers, etc.) that is used by, or in the care of a resident to promote, supplement, or enhance the resident’s function and/or safety.

  • Are Safety Assessments part of therapy evaluations? Are they completed during different times of the day with various scenarios?
  • How often does therapy engage in assessing assistance devices and providing staff education on proper use? How often does therapy assess to see if those devices are still the best option for each resident?
  • Does therapy use a gait belt on patients anytime they require more than a supervision level of assistance?
  • Is Therapy familiar with what’s on the care plan and helping to ensure it’s accurate for device usage?
  • Is Therapy familiar with the CCA audit specific to this tag?

“Fall” refers to unintentionally coming to rest on the ground, floor, or other lower level, but not as a result of an overwhelming external force (e.g., a resident pushes another resident). An episode where a resident lost his/her balance and would have fallen, if not for another person or if he or she had not caught him/herself, is considered a fall. A fall without injury is still a fall. Unless there is evidence suggesting otherwise, when a resident is found on the floor, a fall is considered to have occurred.

  • Do all disciplines get involved to determine who is a fall risk and what interventions to use?
  • The evaluative phase for fall prevention shouldn’t end with one assessment. Patient behavior over time needs to be measured to determine the best interventions.
  • Are we using various standardized tests that tell us who is at increased risk for falls such as:
  • Do we assess gait velocity or just distance?
  • Does therapy take time to ensure a new admit or a resident with a room change is oriented to their new environment? Is the environment set up in the best way for this patient’s success?
  • Does Therapy use a gait belt on patients anytime they require more than a supervision level of assistance?
  • Is Therapy familiar with the CCA audit specific to this tag?
  • Does Therapy attend COC/Falls meetings?

Best Practice Ideas

  • We have Therapy representation attending and contributing ideas for Incident and Fall meetings.
  • We do ongoing therapy assessments for positioning, transfers, seating set up, etc. as fall prevention. NOTE: also ensure Care Plan is updated with the correct recommendations!
  • We provide education to Nursing on how Therapy can help with both fall reduction and post-fall support. ALL disciplines! Be sure to cover how much SLP can do around cognition. Our SLPs work on fall reduction as much as PT!
  • Therapy has increased communication to nursing in PCC in addition to various “paper forms” many facilities use.
  • We do CNA huddles to ask about their concerns or recent changes with any residents.
  • We complete a full battery of dx tests over more than one day to get a more comprehensive picture of how patients are performing.
  • We participate in facility rounds/safety committee
  • We participate in ongoing reviews of care plans for level of assist recommendations. We avoid ranges of assist (i.e., 1-2) and really dig into what each resident needs for that activity.
  • We do an IDT post-fall meeting outside of a meeting room; we go to the resident and ask them to “re-enact” what happened. We assess environment and figure out any unmet needs of the resident at the time of the fall.
  • Vital signs, vital signs, vital signs! We measure vital signs pre-, during, and post-treatment to assess for changes; we also complete orthostatic blood pressure testing on all residents and know who is at risk.
  • Environment: We assess room setup, bathroom setup (i.e., does the current position of grab bars work for the residents in that room, toilet height, etc.).
  • New admits and room changes: we assess the success of residents’ ability to function safely upon admission or after a room change (maybe they were closer to the bathroom and now they are not), as this is a new environment and it can be confusing to navigate, especially at night.
  • Our OT has helped tremendously with our low vision population, adjusting the lighting in rooms and adding colored codes to remotes/call lights.
  • We noticed a pattern of skilled patients falling within a day or two of admission. The Falls Team felt that this was due to the fact that there was no wheelchair available upon admission, as Nursing was waiting for Therapy to eval for transfers, etc. It led to patients attempting to transfer themselves because they did not have that visual reminder to wait for assistance. We attempted to solve this problem by having the rehab tech place a wheelchair in the patient rooms prior to admission so the reminder was there upon arrival. We noted a decline in subsequent falls around 18% month over month following this implementation.
  • We noticed that quite a few falls were happening due to the patient’s need to toilet. The PTs jumped on board and decided to start a day shift toileting program whereby we scheduled time daily for the skilled patients who had fall risk factors. One therapist would have those patients scheduled for regular therapy and then follow up during the second half of their day to perform the toileting for the assigned patients for the day. They were successfully able to get those patients to the toilet twice throughout the four-hour shift, while also being able to bill time for functional activities as indicated. The two weeks we were able to run the program so far evidenced no falls on shift (and high patient satisfaction 😊). Our next step is to include all PTs and OTs on a rotating basis to perform toileting rounds on day shift and see how this impacts our falls.
  • We communicate important updates and changes using the KARDEX for CNA/Nurse Easy Access.

Group and Concurrent: How the Organizational LEADER Gets It Done! (Hint: It’s About Teamwork 😉)

By Shelby Donahoo, Therapy Resource, Arizona

Month in, month out, COVID or no COVID, Sabino Canyon in Tucson, AZ, leads our organization in group and concurrent metrics. Averaging around 30% in both skilled and long-term care provision, it’s just become part of the facility culture. Executive Director Jaron Watson, DNS Quinny Mazzola, and TPM Dora Alvarez spoke to the Tucson market at an ED/DNS/DOR meeting last month to discuss.

“It’s about partnership,” they all said. “There aren’t ‘department goals’ but all-inclusive “facility goals.” Nursing is just as invested in rehab metrics as their own, and vice versa. There is an understanding of the benefit of group and concurrent for the residents and the facility from an IDT perspective, so it’s considered a group effort to achieve this metric.

Sabino Canyon runs an extremely busy skilled and long-term care program and services, so services need to be focused on function from day one. With a combination of group and one-on-one services, we get to spend more time with our patients overall, and our patients receive longer rehab services during a given day,” said Dora. This is a philosophy adapted with PT, OT and SLP.

With results creating buy-in from the Rehab team, a full understanding of more patient rehab time = better outcomes, and operational impact is discussed on all levels. Having patients up and ready for groups throughout the day becomes an expectation. Systems and flexibility are critical to this project:
● Each nurse’s station has a group schedule dry-erase board, showing time of group and patients scheduled for the group daily
● Rehab front-loads “on the unit” sessions the first few days of stay to incorporate much CNA training and sharing of individual patient goals
● Dry-erase boards with pictures of patient levels (mobility, device, etc.) are in each patient’s closet; Nursing uses a report sheet with diagnosis, precautions, etc. for quick reference as to patient concerns and assist needs
● Nursing, Therapy and Admissions consider the ability to do groups and concurrent treatment provision with roommate placement

Skilled long-term care groups have morphed into RNA groups. Self-ROM and AAROM groups are popular. Specific exercise groups are taught to Activities. One 3x/week exercise group is led by one of the residents.

Congrats, Sabino ,on your ability to “think out of the box” and amazing teamwork!

Falls Management: Collaboration is KEY

By Tamala Sammons, M.A., CCC-SLP, Senior Therapy Resource

Part 1: Fall Reduction: Focus on Strategies for Prevention
How do we identify who is at risk for a fall? Generally, we assess a resident’s physical and cognitive performance to determine who is a fall risk. However, many residents score as a fall risk, so how do we really sort it out? Do we really know who is most likely to attempt to move and why? That is a key difference.

The Challenge: Identify fall risk residents by finding out who is motivated to move and then find out what that motivating factor is. Give the residents a voice … give the CNAs a voice. Ask the resident and CNA about any changes, challenges and unmet needs.

Complete fall rounds on the floor, not in a meeting room! Assess the environment. How is the resident room set up? How is the bathroom set up? Where is the bed in relation to heating/cooling systems? How is the closet designed? What is lighting like at night? Ask the resident about their environment: how it is set up, temperature preferences, access, lighting, etc.

Provide the nurses with a tool kit based on activity prescriptions: Complete a thorough evaluation, determine who is motivated to move, determine what activities they enjoy being engaged in, determine what they can do alone and with caregivers, create activity-based prescriptions based on eval and treatment findings. Have this information and the supplies in the tool kit for nurses to easily access.

Create a Falls IDT with Nursing, Activities/Rec Therapy, RNA, and Therapy. Re-think how to really identify who’s at risk (motivated to move). Do rounds together. Have daily huddles to review the 24-hour report. Share interventions. Keep building the tool kits.

Part 2: Fall Reduction: Focus on Strategies Post-Fall
Partner with clinical to determine the cause of the fall. Ask the resident what they were doing/wanting. See if they can re-enact what they were doing prior to the fall. When reviewing a fall, ask: Is it cursory, perfunctory with the same approaches/interventions? Or are we creative, thorough and using great detective work to truly develop individualized interventions?

Complete a comprehensive evaluation. If currently on caseload, consider a re-evaluation … head to toe! Engage all therapy disciplines. Leave nothing out of the investigation to the root cause. It may take a few days to figure it all out.

  • Vital signs: Review blood sugars and check orthostatic BPs
  • Standardized tests: Assess strength and muscle performance; aerobic capacity; gait and locomotion; range of motion; ADLs; cognition; pain scales; vital signs!; sensory impairments; footwear; seating and positioning/support surfaces; modify their environment — remove hazards, modify the bathroom, modify closets; review medications
  • Toileting/Incontinence: Was the resident attempting to toilet? Were they incontinent at the time of the fall? How is the bathroom set up? What adaptive equipment is in place/needed?
  • Positioning: Does the resident have difficulty maintaining good positioning and is it different in bed versus in a wheelchair? Were all positioning devices in place at the time of the fall? What is needed now?
  • Pain: Were they motivated to move due to pain? Was there a pain treatment in place prior to the fall? Does there need to be one now?
  • Cognition/Communication: Is there any difficulty using the call light? Any difficulty expressing needs? Can they understand and follow requests? Can they explain what happened and why they fell?
  • Strength/Balance mobility: What are the safety concerns with physical movement or use of current devices? Was there sudden weakness or dizziness reported? Can they demonstrate what they were doing when they fell? Complete muscle and sensory testing.
  • Low vision assessment: Can they see the things they need? How is the lighting? Does there need to be color contrast in the room or bathroom?

Provide skilled interventions to address:

  • Difficulty with transfers in/out wheelchair/standard chair/bed
  • Inability to accurately position wheelchair when transferring
  • Inability to safely reach objects in near/far proximity
  • Difficulty crossing midline
  • Losing balance when challenged outside base of support
  • Inability to lift/carry objects
  • Difficulty with ambulation while multitasking (e.g., walking and talking)
  • Losing balance with overhead activities
  • Poor body alignment or losing balance when bending
  • Gait deviations when ambulating
  • Loss of balance with direction change or varying surfaces when ambulating
  • Shortness of breath with increased mobility distance/ambulation distance
  • Confusion or misuse of assistive device(s)
  • Difficulty climbing stairs/curbs
  • Poor recognition of safety hazards with mobility tasks
  • Impaired mobility
  • Impaired vision/hearing/sensation
  • Impaired cognition
  • Modify the environment: lighting, grab bars, raised toilet seats, bedside commodes, add color for low vision or other visual impairments; what about the closet?

Additional Resources

Putting Theory into Practice with Activity Cards

By Carly Peevers, SLP and Andrew Folmar, OT Rosewood Rehabilitation, Reno, NV

You’ve done the assessments, sensory profiles, interventions, accumulated all this information about your residents to create a specific maintenance program within their Allen Cognitive Level, but what now? How do we effectively share and educate the caregivers to create a successful functional maintenance program and have a place where they can reference this information as needed? This was a question we had early on in the Abilities Care Approach, and that’s when our facility implemented activity cards.

Activity Cards are a summary of the information collected throughout the intervention which may include:
• Stage specific recommendations within different environmental and activity demands, personally relevant activities with modifications and strategies for this patient,
• Pertinent life history and
• Sensory information that may assist in engagement and/or management of behaviors
in order to increase meaningful engagement, quality of life, and maintenance of cognitive and/or communicative function.

What does the Activity Card look like on paper? We use a tri-fold pamphlet to present our information. The front has a color outline corresponding to their ACL level (red, orange, yellow, blue). On the inside there are three columns.
• The first provides a list of activities/interests and modification recommendations.
• The second column is a summary and description of current abilities in cognition (attention, problem solving, sequencing etc.), communication, physical strengths and limitations during ADLs, and possible barriers in their cognitive function.
• The third column is a running shopping list that incorporates this patient’s personal interests and functional needs (grooming/hygiene supplies, sensory stimulation tools, clothes, etc.). We attach this pamphlet to the patient’s life history board with Velcro so it is easily accessible to all caregivers and support staff for a quick reference.

We hope this information helps others with their caregiver engagement for dementia residents.

Abilities Care Approach for a Win-Win

By Tiffany Bishop, Therapy Resource, Keystone North, TX
For those of us in the therapy world, we all know the value that the Abilities Care Approach can bring to our residents in the form of increased independence, decreased behaviors, and increased ability to function in the environment. Just this past week, our most recent Therapy Experts in the Abilities Care Holistic Approach (TEACHA) team had a brief check-in call. One of the items we identified as a potential for growth is partnering better with our clinical partners to integrate our ACA programming throughout residents’ whole intervention plan.

In a time when our partners are already stretched thin, we identified the need for making any recommendations for our clinical teams more manageable to follow. There were several suggestions that were shared, and Elyse Matson is leading the charge to collect any more that have been effective and putting those ideas in an easy-t- distribute format. Below are some of the tips and tricks that were identified during our call.

● Make sure that we are working around their schedules when training
● Include these caregivers in the process of developing and implementing any adaptive strategies/tools so they can provide input along the way and have ownership in the intervention
● Empower our frontline partners as caregivers to be able to follow through with the day-to-day implementation of any interventions
● Be specific
● Be frugal in our expectations
● Be strategic in when/how we train; consider utilizing Skills Fairs to train common interventions
● Identify and stress how any intervention can be a win for them; how will it decrease their daily burden?

Stay tuned for more details to come from the Long Term Care Think Tank, and if you have any ideas that have worked well in your facility, please reach out to Elyse Matson.

Student Interns Share Transfer Reference Guide

Submitted by Gary Pearson, OT/DOR, Pointe Meadows, Lehi, UT
Here at Pointe Meadows, we had some wonderful students this past summer, including three physical therapy students from the University of St. Augustine. The students are Zachary Dreyer, Austin Jenson and Antonino Russo. In collaboration with these three students we made a Transfer Reference Guide, which is an easy-to-follow pamphlet with hints and tips on multiple techniques for transfers and other precautions related to weight-bearing and gait belt use. Also included are QR codes with links to videos on specific transfer techniques and bed mobility.

As DOR, I have incorporated this pamphlet into my portion of new-hire orientation utilizing the information to guide my transfer training for all new employees with the onboarding process. It has also been presented at two all-staff meetings and a nursing/CNA specific training.

As we are working hard on retention and showing our wonderful staff support in these hard times, our therapy department is attempting to provide expertise in training to all staff in our building. We are trying to support our clinical partners in any way possible and have had good feedback from staff on improved confidence and understanding with the process of transfers throughout our building.

Please let me know if you have any questions or would like more information. I feel this is a way our therapy teams can support our nursing and CNA partners in our buildings.

Teaming Up in Supporting Our Nurses

By Hannah Allen, SLP, St. Joseph’s Villa, Salt Lake City, UT
The Milestone Market SLPs get together for an SLP call once a month to share clinical ideas. During our last call, I was able to lead a discussion about considerations to include in our clinical thinking process when we recommend alternative forms of medication administration due to dysphagia. My husband is a clinical pharmacist who works in the ICU setting and is often involved in determining appropriate adjustments made to medications when patients are not able to take them orally, or not able to take them whole with liquid. He was able to share some great information that can be very helpful in our SLPs teaming up with and supporting Nursing with medication administration.

For example, we discussed how recommendations for crushed medications, or medications taken in any alternative forms, may be affecting the efficacy of the patient’s medication management if appropriate adjustments are not made by a pharmacist. Many medications are OK to be crushed, but some are not. If we crush them, this may make the Therapy of the medications ineffective or less effective. In some cases (such as in the case of seizure medications), we may also have the potential to cause harm. In other cases (such as Parkinson’s medications), we may be making their medications ineffective or less effective, which may decrease the actual therapeutic benefit they get from any of their PT/OT/SLP interventions.

The best option is to make sure we (or someone) is consulting the pharmacist to ensure medications are compatible with crushing. If they are not, a pharmacist may have suggestions on adjustments or changes to medications that will facilitate the safest form of delivery while maintaining medication efficacy. Some of us may have something like this in place in our facilities already, but some of us may not. This may be a process to build into our practice and the procedures of our facilities as we recommend alternative medication administration methods for our patients with dysphagia.

Below are some of the resources that were shared:
Podcast Episode: Swallow Your Pride Episode 173 — Crushing Meds: What’s an SLP to Do?
http://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/dmh/1042766_MedicationsDoNotCrushList.pdf
ISMP Do Not Crush List:
http://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/dmh/1042766_MedicationsDoNotCrushList.pdf
Blog Post by Karen Sheffler all about Pill Dysphagia
https://swallowstudy.com/trouble-swallowing-pills-what-to-do-for-pill-dysphagia/
Attached items:
-Article on effects of thickened liquids and puree on medication absorption


-PILL-5 Questionnaire, a patient-reported outcome measure; may be a good measure to utilize when we get consulted specifically for patients struggling with medications.


-Show Notes for the Podcast episode with many of the same resources and a quick rundown of the episode in written form

Myth Busting Medicare Part B: Training Therapists at New Acquisitions

By Dominic DeLaquil, Pennant ID/NV Therapy Resource

New acquisitions are not only a great opportunity to welcome a new facility to a market and the organization but they also give us an opportunity to provide culture and clinical training opportunities. This is really important early on as we need to understand what myths or rumors therapists from other organizations might be bringing with them. (This is also important with any new hires!)

Therapy programming on the long-term units was immediately identified as an opportunity for our residents. We saw a great opportunity to meet with the therapists, and ask questions to uncover any barriers, misunderstandings or prior trainings that they might have toward therapy interventions.

Understanding the benefits of maintenance therapy to keep residents at their highest practicable level of function was an identified area of educational opportunities. The training focused on the three things that are required to be in place to support the need for therapy services:

  1. Services must require the skills of a therapist
  2. Services must be reasonable and necessary for the patient’s condition
  3. Services must be rehabilitative in nature OR require the skills of a therapist to maintain function or prevent decline

It’s important to provide training on maintenance programs, including preventing decline, training aides and caregivers, and how we might attempt to transition to a maintenance program that can be carried out by our CNAs or RNAs. For example, training included how to adjust frequency to measure if therapy can discharge altogether without decline setting in and documenting those changes to the POC as evidence of the need for ongoing therapy skill if that’s the case. Training was also tied into the importance of QMs and survey tags related to failure to prevent a decline in function.”

Here are the key areas that constitute material impact other than progress:
• Assessment and analysis (Vitals, standardized tests)
• Preventing decline or deterioration
• Decreasing medical risk (Vitals)
• Training others to facilitation improvement or prevent decline

The training then focused on examples of what to capture in the documentation to support therapy services. Overall the response was a collective sigh of relief knowing that they, the therapists, could build a LTC program using their clinical judgment and knowing that they had the resources and support to ensure services were supported in the documentation.

Urinary Incontinence Program

By Danielle Banman, OT/DOR, The Healthcare Resort of Leawood, KS
Here at The Healthcare Resort of Leawood, we have the privilege of serving our LTC and ALF residents, rehab patients, and community outpatients with our urinary incontinence program. We provide training on exercises to improve pelvic floor muscle strength and education on bladder emptying strategies, adequate water intake, and bladder irritant avoidance during the first 30 days. If the patient has not made significant improvement within 30 days, we are able to initiate PENS during weeks five and six per Medicare guidelines. We are then able to provide continued training and PENS with the addition of MFAC during weeks six to 10 to help the patient make as much progress as possible.

I have been helping people with this program for over 20 years and keep seeing great results! Patients tell us how much it has changed their lives time and time again. They are often able to attend activities and events they love, travel, and have improved quality of sleep, to name just a few benefits. If your team would like to know more about this great program, we would love to help you get started!

Contact dbanman@ensignservices.net, livewellatleawood.com, or 913-484-5234.

Oral Infection Control at City Creek

By Gary McGiven, Therapy Resource, Milestone, UT
Since converting to a COVID-designated facility, City Creek has seen a more acutely ill patient population with an increased reliance on staff support for oral infection control. As COVID-19 patients are significantly more likely to experience complications if they also have poor oral health, City Creek’s SLPs have implemented a system to better track data on how frequently oral infection control support is being offered.

Even for patients who are cognitively and physically capable of performing it for themselves, staff support in the form of set-up assistance or verbal reminders has been valuable. Each patient has a laminated chart displayed in their room. It shows which staff member performed oral care and when. We note patterns of support being offered and frequently refused, or observing patients completing oral care independently.

For patients on the free water protocol, for example, the use of this chart has been extremely valuable. This system has increased patient and staff awareness of the importance of frequent oral care, and individual accountability in staff members. When we can identify patterns, for example, the frequency with which oral care is offered during AM versus PM shifts, we can better target staff education. We’re striving to move the perception of oral care toward an oral infection control program.