This session features a panel of health care leaders who will share their experiences and discuss efforts to prevent violence in the workplace, keeping patients and staff safe. Violence against health care workers has steadily increased for at least a decade. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows health care workers were five times more likely to experience violence in the workplace than other workers.1 Although the number of events has increased, they are still underreported — indicating that the actual number of events could be much higher. Staff exposure to workplace violence can affect patient care and lead to emotional distress, job dissatisfaction, absenteeism, turnover and increased cost. Using a collaborative approach between clinical staff and security allowed AtlantiCare to increase awareness and reporting and develop a systematic approach to prevention.

Potential violence in the workplace is a high priority in many health systems. Interventions like deescalation training and specialty personnel are often part of prevention efforts. The Michigan Medicine team sought to find ways to leverage the electronic medical record to support safe patient care related to potentially violent events. Conceptualizing behavioral escalation as a “vital sign” that can be measured, identified and trended to deliver targeted interventions and resource allocation has been the guiding principle for the workplace violence prevention program at this health system. Seeing behaviors as clinical symptoms that needed trending, along with alerts, helped escalate treatment and support. Through this system we are now able to more readily see risk and put supports in place to mitigate violence early.

Main Line Health (MLH) is committed to identifying and addressing occupational health and safety hazards. In 2016, MLH leadership recognized the need to address violence and aggression that employees were experiencing while at work. An MLH task force was formed to support the launch of the Code Green Team, a response team that supports employees and helps prevent injuries during threats, actual violence or any other disruptive behaviors. Leaders were offered Management of Aggressive Behavior training to assist in risk mitigation by using techniques to decrease the risk of harm through appropriate prevention. In 2018, the task force became the Workplace Violence Prevention Committee and developed and incorporated multiple other components into the organization’s workplace violence prevention program, such as the use of the electronic health record to communicate risk and use of data to support targeted interventions.

Join this session to learn more from these leaders on preventing workplace violence.