Patient Safety - Falls Prevention

As part of our falls prevention strategy we have initiated two new items of interest, the “Ruby Slipper” program and the Oxford Falls Prevention Collaborative. The Ruby Slipper initiative not only provides a visual trigger for team members as to those patients at risk for falls but also an added physical intervention with the use of bright red non-skid slipper socks to be worn at all times. This is especially useful for patients with cognitive impairment who may forget to put on their non-skid footwear.  The Oxford Falls Collaborative is the second initiative (in its infancy) and was formulated in April of this year as a result of the recent publication of the LHIN falls toolkit framework. The goal of this collaborative is to improve safety for seniors through improvement initiatives such as best practices, trigger tools and education. The group includes TDMH along with representatives from our partner hospitals, Woodstock General and Alexandra Hospital Ingersoll as well as the Multiservice Centre, SWCCAC and Public Health. Our goal is to identify safety gaps related to falls and injury prevention for seniors in Oxford County who may be at risk through development of a trigger tool that can be used by all partners.