The MDS is not a Quality Assurance System in the traditional
sense.
You can not use it for data collection that requires the answers
to questions such as:
a) How many falls did we have in the month of
January?
b) Have the absolute number of falls increased this year over
last?
c) Are more people falling?
There are 2 questions related to
falls:
1 ask, in the last 30 days
and
the other ask, in the last 31
to 180 days.
So if a person fell on December 1 2002 and had following
assessment schedule:
Quarterly December 1 2002
Quarterly March 1
2003
Quarterly June 1 2003
Annual Sept 1
2003
Quarterly December 1 2003
Quarterly March 1 2004
Quarterly June 1
2004
Annual Sept 1 2004
Then in December there would
be "1" fall last 30 days "0" 31-180 days
Let 0 mean no Fall and 1 mean a
fall then the fall pattern for person A would be:
Date 30Day
31-180Day
Dec 1
0
Mar 0 1
Jun
0 1
Sep
0 0
Dec
0 0
Mar
0 0
Jun
0 0
Sep
0
0
*******************
Now lets assume that a person B fell twice a
day for every day of December 2003 or 62 times.
Date 30Day
31-180Day
Dec 1
0
Mar 0 1
Jun
0 1
Sep
0 0
Dec
0 0
Mar
0 0
Jun
0 0
Sep
0 0
How would you know
if person A was different than person B
The only thing you can say with
the MDS QI is relative to how the MDS measures things other site may be having
more or less falls.
The way I see it.
Visit our MDS Users Forum WWW.RAI.TO
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