agenda 2009–2014

Decades of research have been conducted on the risk, prevention, and management of falls. Extensive research addresses the identified intrinsic and extrinsic fall risks and the importance of screening for these risks. The emphasis for patient safety interventions surrounding falls and injury pre-vention must be on patient-centered, multifactorial, individualized care plans that are population-based. Yet the link between risk assessment and the effectiveness of population-based interventions remains weak. Early efforts focused on risk factors for prevention of falls in the elderly, largely ignoring interventions and also considering all fallers as one single group. Research then moved into fall screening and risk assessment, but these two processes were often intermingled, leading to confusion about linking risk to specific interventions. Still the focus was on fall prevention and the elderly, lumping all fallers into one single group. Next, research focused on interventions, but the focus was on fall prevention and the elderly, again lumping all fallers together. A new agenda begins to question this focus on fall prevention and addresses fall protection and injury prevention, emphasizing therapeutic risk associated with activity and community participation. This new agenda also recognizes the need to segment high-risk patient populations to identify unique risks and tailor interventions (e.g., peripheral neuropathy, wheelchair fallers) using new three-dimensional techniques to assess gait and balance as well as other key risk factors. The new agenda also goes beyond fall screen-ing and fall risk assessment, emphasizing the need to screen individuals, fol-low up with in-depth risk assessment protocols, and link interventions to specific modifiable risk factors. As more evidence is available to clinicians, for translational research efforts are needed to develop clinical tools to make it easier for clinicians to provide evidence-based practice and to explore more effective and efficient strategies for implementing evidence-based programs across clinical settings and facilities. To advocate for evidence-based practice in fall prevention an