Bay of Plenty District Health Board is making strides in its effort to reduce the number of patient falls.

The Bay of Plenty District Health Board is making gains in achieving its targets.

The Health Quality and Safety Commission's second quarterly report for DHB performance against five quality and safety markers was released today to the DHB around the country.

The report had an accompanying statement highlighting the BOPDHB's second successive quarter of significant performance gains in assessing hospitalised older patients for their risk of a fall as one of its case studies.

Having risen 24 per cent [against baseline data] in the previous quarter, to 67 per cent, it improved a further 13 per cent this quarter to register an 80 per cent result.

BOPDHB nurse leader Maurice Chamberlain put the result down to an education drive and plenty of old-fashioned hard work.

'A lot of hard work went into achieving our results, and an important part of it was empowering clinical nurse managers and other staff on the wards to take ownership of improving our falls prevention activities.

'If you don't make a plan, you can't make a difference.”

The QSMs are indicators of DHB performance in areas where a reduction in harm and cost is targetted nationally and concentrate on desired processes and procedures.

For October-December the focus areas were: Falls, Central Line Associated Bacteraemia [CLAB], Perioperative Harm, Hand Hygiene and Surgical Site Infections [SSIs].