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Rationale: Little scrutiny has been applied to how 'cost per fall' values have been calculated and applied. This paper presents discourse discussing how the cost of fall statistic could potentially be misleading when applied to inpatient health or residential care settings and provides estimates of the cost of falls and cost of falls per person., Method: Burden of disease was estimated using a decision tree approach. Data informing the decision tree were drawn from a retrospective audit of 545 falls in a residential care facility, a visual observation study of 46 residents from the same facility and a cohort study of 186 residents from nine different facilities in Australia. Acute care and transportation costs were extracted from the retrospective audit using incident reports and care note review. The distribution of falls per person and associations between falls, fractures and change in resident mobility were extracted from the cohort study. The association between resident mobility and the amount of time required to perform toileting, transfer and dressing activities was extracted from the visual observational study., Results: The minimum 'cost per fall' was estimated to be $AUD 841 and the maximum was $AUD 1024. The 'cost of falls per person' estimate was $AUD 1887 (2008 base year)., Conclusions: This cost per fall estimate was substantially lower than three previous internationally derived estimates possibly as a consequence of how fall data were collected and modelled in these studies. Cost of falls per person may be a preferable statistic for future use., (© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.)

Background: Falls are common adverse events in residential care facilities. Commonly reported figures indicate that at least 50% of residents fall in a 12 month period, and that this figure is substantially higher for residents with dementia. This paper reports the protocol of a project which aims to implement evidence based falls prevention strategies in nine residential aged care facilities (RACFs) in Australia. The facilities in the study include high and low care, small and large facilities, metropolitan and regional, facilities with a specific cultural focus, and target groups recognised as being more challenging to successful implementation of falls prevention practice (e.g. residents with dementia)., Methods: The project will be conducted from November 2007-November 2009. The project will involve baseline scoping of existing falls rates and falls prevention activities in each facility, an action research process, interactive falls prevention training, individual falls risk assessments, provision of equipment and modifications, organisation based steering committees, and an economic evaluation. In each RACF, staff will be invited to join an action research group that will lead the process of developing and implementing interventions designed to facilitate an evidence based approach to falls management in their facility. In all RACFs a pre/post design will be adopted with a range of standardised measures utilised to determine the impact of the interventions., Discussion: The care gap in residential aged care that will be addressed through this project relates to the challenges in implementing best practice falls prevention actions despite the availability of best practice guidelines. There are numerous factors that may limit the uptake of best practice falls prevention guidelines in residential aged care facilities. A multi-factorial individualised (to the specific requirements of each facility) approach will be used to develop and implement an action plan in each participating facility based on the best available evidence.