Minnesota's falls initiative has been recognized nationally for its efforts around preventing falls for all populations. Resources including ways in which a provider can identify risk factors can be found on the website. The Minnesota Hospital Association’s "Safe from Falls" campaign is a great example of the level of collaboration achieved in Minnesota with multiple stakeholders. A roadmap is available on how to achieve a comprehensive Falls Prevention Program which includes over 30 best practices that participating hospitals have agreed to put into place.

In Minnesota, a wide variety of partners – including state agencies, hospitals, health plans and other organizations – have come together to find innovative ways to prevent falls in our state. We are proud of the collaborative nature of our work, especially with our state hospital association. With our most recent adverse events report, we saw a 20 percent decrease in hospital falls that led to serious injury or death. But there is still much more work to be done.
—Dr. Sanne Magnan, Commissioner of Health, Minnesota

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has taken a leadership role in aggressively pursuing several avenues toward reducing the incidence and severity of falls and fall injuries among older adults in Massachusetts. (See the SHO Kit for Massachusetts state legislation)

"In Massachusetts alone it has been estimated that 150 seniors a day are hospitalized as a result of a fall-related injury at an annual cost to our health care system of $391 million dollars. More than 75 health care institutions, government agencies, advocates, researchers and community based senior care facilities have pulled together to address this problem in Massachusetts. I applaud the work of this coalition and hope that their approach can be seen as a model for other initiatives."
–John Auerbach, Commissioner, Massachusetts Department of Health

Stepping On and Tai Chi for Better Balance are part of the pilot programs funded by NCIPC to develop tools/resources for dissemination.

State-Based Falls Free Coalitions: The National Council on Aging (NCOA) has created a National Action Plan on falls prevention and a nationwide coalition that includes over 29 states. If you'd like to build a coalition in your state, the NCOA can provide you with guidance and proven approaches.

Falls Prevention Video for Seniors: Seattle Pacific University nursing students developed an eight-minute video for the elderly that details evidence-based strategies for reducing their risk of falling.

Minnesota's Foreign Language Outreach: The Minnesota Falls Prevention Initiative is taking a multi-lingual, multi-media approach to educating stakeholders.

State and National Data: The Centers for Disease Control, NCIPC has fact sheets and other resources to assist you in assessing both national and state based data. You can also use CDC's web-based injury statistics database, WISQARS.

Federal Policy: Falls Prevention Legislation: The Falls Free Coalition Advocacy Workgroup is working to broaden the focus of prevention activities to include reduction in injuries, and include injury and falls prevention in community transformation grants. The Coalition has successfully convinced the Senate to include injury and falls prevention in its current health reform legislation.

State Policy: Minnesota Adverse Health Care Events reporting law: This law has been in place since 2003. Between 2003 and 2007, the list of reportable events included falls associated with death; that was expanded two years ago to include falls associated with serious disabilities such as hip and other fractures and serious head injuries. Falls are now among the most commonly-reported events. The Minnesota nonpayment of adverse events law Subdivision 3b (5) addresses nonpayment for hospital-acquired conditions and for certain treatments including those pertaining to falls.

State Policy: States Paying More Attention to Prevention: States are playing an increasingly visible role in addressing injury prevention issues. The National Council of State Legislatures provides tables illustrating laws, appropriations, active bills and additional measures pertaining to falls prevention for the following states: CA, CT, FL, ME, NY, TX, WA, IL, MA, NJ and NY.

Best Practices in Healthy Aging: In December of 2009, Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management held a Healthy Aging Health Policy Forum where best practices were analyzed by a panel of top state officials and nonprofit organization leaders.