BOSTON (Reuters) - Falls by elderly people are cut significantly when healthcare providers take basic steps such as prescribing physical therapy, monitoring medications and checking Such a programme in Connecticut reduced the number of falls among people aged 70 and older by 9 per cent, Dr. Mary Tinetti of the Yale School of Medicine and colleagues have reported.Their programme resulted in about 1,800 fewer hospitalisations or trips to the emergency room and an 11-per cent reduction in fall-related medical services."In addition to discomfort and disability averted, this decrease represents a potential savings of more than $21 million in healthcare costs on the basis of an average acute care cost of $12,000 per event," they wrote in their report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.In 2005, nearly 300,000 Americans had hip fractures associated with a fall, and an average of 24 per cent of hip-fracture patients aged 50 and over died in the next year, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation.Among people over 65, fall-related injuries account for 10 per cent of the cases that show up in an emergency department and 6 per cent of hospitalisations. There is also evidence that doctors don't do enough to prevent them."If you ask most old people and clinicians, they will say falls are common, but it's not considered a disease or health condition on par with strokes or heart attacks. It hasn't sunk in that it's the responsibility of clinicians to recognise and prevent them," Tinetti said in a telephone interview.