Please join us Thursday, 04/01/2021 for POP Research seminar of the Spring 2021, held from 11:45 am-1:15 pm in Communicore, via Zoom. We will be welcoming Ronald Shorr, M.D., M.S. as our seminar speaker.
Ronald I. Shorr, M.D., M.S., directs the Geriatrics Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) at the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System—one of 20 US centers devoted to improving healthcare for older veterans. He is also a Research Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Florida. Dr. Shorr received his MD from Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio, USA) and completed training Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at the University of Wisconsin and the William S. Middleton VA medical center (Madison, Wisconsin, USA). In addition, he has completed a Master of Science degree in Epidemiology at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio, USA) and a postdoctoral fellowship in Pharmacoepidemiology at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN, USA). Dr. Shorr has extensive experience conducting both observational and experimental studies on healthcare safety and quality, particularly in older adult populations. He was the recipient of an NIA Clinical Investigator Award (K08) and has been PI and Co-Investigator on several NIH funded studies on fall prevention in hospitalized patients. He has an also an investigator on several Veterans Affairs sponsored studies related to healthcare quality and safety. He has served on the Editorial Board for the Journals of Gerontology: Medical Science, Journal of Geriatric Pharmacotherapy and Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development and has been the lead author in publications in JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, and the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. He has been the Chair of the Health Sciences Section of the Gerontological Society of America and The VA liaison for the Research Committee of the American Geriatrics Society.
Dr. Shorr’s seminar title is: “Falls in Hospital Patients: chasing the holy grail“
Synopsis: Falls in hospitalized patients are a pressing patient safety concern, but there is a limited body of evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of commonly used fall prevention interventions in hospitals. This article reviews common study designs and the evidence for various hospital fall prevention interventions. There is a need for more rigorous research on fall prevention in the hospital setting.
Key Points:
- Falls in hospitalized patients result in significant burdens to patients and medical organizations
- Despite the multiplicity of “positive” quality assurance demonstrations of fall prevention interventions, these studies should not be viewed as “evidence” of effectiveness
- Few controlled interventions exceed usual care in preventing hospital falls when tested rigorously
- There is a pressing need for large, well-designed trials of hospital fall prevention interventions
To join the meeting: Please contact Katherine Morris, Motomori Lewis, or Valarie Jackson for the Zoom link and password.