What is the national benchmark for falls in psychiatric units?
There is very limited national benchmark data on falls, largely due to lack of standardized nomenclature for definitions of falling events and varying methods for reporting of falls. The NDNQI (National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators) reports 3-4 falls per 1,000 inpatient days on medical units in all sizes of hospitals. Unfortunately, specific fall rates or benchmarking data for acute in-patient psychiatric units are not available. The incidence of falls on psychiatric units (studies report fall rates of 13.
