In 2010, a team of Australia's leading falls prevention researchers, led by Dr Anna Barker, received a research grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council to undertake a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to test the 6-PACK falls prevention program.
The 6-PACK program was designed and successfully implemented at The Northern Hospital in Victoria. This is a targeted, nurse delivered, falls prevention program, designed specifically for acute hospital wards. It consists of a nurse assessment of a patient's risk, using a nine-item risk assessment tool and the delivery of one or more of the six ‘6-PACK’ interventions applied to patients classified as high-risk.
The aim of the 6-PACK Trial is to assess whether there has been meaningful reductions in falls injuries, canvass staff responses and observations following implementation of the 6-PACK Program, and assess the economic benefit of the Program within hospitals.
The 12 month RCT phase is now complete and data on ~40,000 patients has been obtained, with almost 2000 falls and 500 falls injuries from 24 wards, making the 6-PACK trial the world’s largest falls prevention trial to date! Participating sites have commenced the sustainability phase, and analysis and reporting of the Cluster RCT is due for completion by August 2013: Stay tuned for the results!
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