Falls Prevention
Resources from April 11, 2012 South West/ESC LHIN Learning Collaborative
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Integrated Provincial Falls Prevention Framework & Toolkit
Stay Up, Keep Up!
Falls reduce quality of life for our seniors, impacting their mobility, health and independence.
Falls also cost the Ontario health-care system billions of dollars, resulting in avoidable visits to the Emergency Department, hospitalizations, high Alternate Level of Care rates, and all too often, admission to long-term care homes.
In 2009:
- 50% of injury-related hospitalizations were due to falls
- More than 90% of all hip fractures are due to falls
- 55 in every 1,000 seniors visited the ER due to a fall
- 13 in every 1,000 seniors were hospitalized due to a fall
Falls are a leading cause of injury and death among seniors. And yet, most falls are avoidable with proper education, awareness, screening, assessment, intervention and prevention.
To address this, Ontario’s LHINs and Public Health Units partnered to develop an Integrated Provincial Falls Prevention Framework & Toolkit to improve quality of life for Ontario seniors aged 65 years and over, and to lessen the impact of falls on the health care system by reducing the number and impact of falls.
This project aligns with government and LHIN priorities to reduce Alternate Level of Care and Emergency Department wait times as well as the province’s Excellent Care for All Act and public health’s Injury Prevention and Healthy Communities strategies.
Many organizations are already doing great work to reduce falls among seniors. This framework and toolkit pulls together leading practices, programs and resources to create a coordinated, consistent approach to measure the effectiveness of falls prevention interventions across the province.
Even though a falls prevention program already exists in the Grey Bruce Public Health Unit area, we will be using the framework and toolkit to strength falls prevention across the South West and ensure consistency is achieved where required. The South West LHIN is pleased that one of our local aging at home initiatives – the Grey Bruce Fall’s Prevention and intervention Program - is profiled in the Tool Kit. Click here to see a profile of this initiative profiled on the South West LHIN website
Relevant Links
Integrated Provincial Falls Prevention Framework & Toolkit
Background Information
Frequently Asked Questions