Purpose for the program: The purpose of this poster is to share information regarding the incidence of infant falls on the Maternal Infant Services unit at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns, the education strategies employed to decrease the risk of falls, as well as to explore future plans for decreasing infant falls.

Proposed change: Investigations were completed to identify trends in infant falls. Staff and patient education were developed utilizing the findings from incident reports.  Picture-based patient education was developed and posted in patient rooms for easy access by patients and visitors.

Implementation, outcomes and evaluation: Focused staff and patient education were implemented in April 2010. In 2009 there were 5.83 falls per 10,000 live births, and in 2010 there were 2.5 falls per 10,000 live births (8,568 live births in 2010). 3 falls occurred in 2010 prior to the implementation of staff and patient education. From the implementation of education, there wre no falls for nearly a year.  At the time of this abstract submission, there were .43 falls per 10,000 live births (4,341 live births as of June, 2011).

Implications for nursing practice: The success of patient education may be attributed to the goal of educating the patient and visitors, as well as providing education to illiterate or non-English speaking patients. The patient education posters were translated into Spanish; however, patients at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns originate from a variety of countries and speak many different languages. To optimize comprehension of patient education, consideration should be given to utilizing pictures in addition to text.

Keywords: Infant falls, health literacy, cultural barriers, staff education