Establishing the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and student experience of simulation training for the prevention of falls amongst hospitalised inpatients

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This proposal aims to establish the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and student experience of simulation training for the prevention of falls amongst hospitalised inpatients. This will be undertaken through established undergraduate placements of Monash University health professional students across Peninsula Health acute and subacute inpatient wards. The research team comprises of leaders in interprofessional education (IPE), simulated learning, health economics and falls prevention from Monash University, Monash Health and Peninsula Health. Prevention of falls is an Australian quality and safety priority particularly within health care services. Peninsula Health provides various types of training for employed health care staff and has systems in place for managing falls risk and monitoring falls incidents. There is little education about falls prevention strategies provided to undergraduate health professional students, either during university subjects or on orientation to Peninsula Health. Simulation learning provides the ideal environments for teaching high and low fidelity tasks with students. Falls prevention is the responsibility of all health care professionals therefore is an ideal test case within Peninsula Health for a simulated interprofessional learning package. The research team will conduct a cluster, cross-over randomised controlled trial with a concurrent economic evaluation (cost per fall prevented). It will target the health professional (medical, nursing and allied health) undergraduate students who enter Peninsula Health for placement over 2015/2016. The intervention will include the use of an evidence based simulation training program with three modules targeting falls prevention strategies with the patient with delirium, the patient with dementia and the patient with risk taking behaviours without delirium or dementia. The primary outcome of this research will be measured falls (patients) across inpatient facilities with secondary outcomes including satisfaction with the simulation learning environment, knowledge gain, ward-level practice change and cost of acute / rehabilitation care for each patient measured using clinical costing data.