In 2025, an ECRI database logged more than 70,000 patient falls, and working-age adults accounted for nearly 3 in 10 of them, according to a May 26 report.
ECRI, a nonprofit patient safety organization, analyzed 71,456 falls reported to its database between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2025. Here are 25 statistics to know:
- Approximately 60% of the falls, or 43,956, were serious events. About 13% were near-miss events or recorded as unsafe conditions. The remainder were incidents or did not receive a harm score.
- Across age groups, working-age adults — defined as those between the ages of 18 and 64 — accounted for 29.3% of the falls. Adults ages 65 to 84 accounted for about 36% of falls and those older than 85 accounted for 11.4%. About 20% of the ages were unknown. Patients aged 17 and younger accounted for very few falls, altogether making up 2.6%.
- Falls happened most often during transfer, with transfers associated with 45.3% of the 71,465 falls. About 30% of falls occurred during toileting, 9.4% during ambulating and 2.4% were physiological falls. Rare events included bathing (0.3%), reaching (0.5%), unknown/found on floor (0.5%), undergoing a diagnostic or therapeutic procedure (1.2%), and because of building and grounds (1.7%).
- A majority of falls, or 68.1%, occurred in acute care settings. Post-acute facilities were the second most common, reporting 3.6% of falls. Cancer centers, behavioral health facilities, children’s hospitals and ambulatory settings each recorded between 0.6% and 3.1% of the 71,465 falls.
- Nearly 50% of falls happened in an unknown location. Recorded locations included inpatient general care areas (23.9%), outpatient care areas (10.2%), post-acute locations (8.8%) and emergency departments (4.8%).
“Falls are often viewed as isolated incidents, but the data consistently show that they are deeply connected to how care systems function,” Shannon Kooker, MSN, RN, vice president of clinical excellence and patient safety at ECRI, said in a statement. “Many falls occur during routine care activities that require coordination between caregivers, so we should be focusing on the systems surrounding patient movement and handoffs, not simply on individual patient or staff behavior.”
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