AHA Partners with the FBI on Mitigating Targeted Violence in Health Care Settings

The AHA in partnership with the FBI today released a new resource and webpage on mitigating targeted violence in health care settings.

Targeted violence in health care refers to intentional and harmful acts in which care teams, patients and health care facilities are specifically singled out. Such acts of violence can take many forms, including physical assaults, verbal threats, harassment, and even large-scale attacks. Targeted violence compromises access and delivery of care, creates difficult work environments, and impacts the overall safety and quality of health care delivery.

To assist in addressing these concerns, the AHA partnered with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit to promote violence prevention strategies and address the escalating threats and acts of targeted violence against health care facilities and the workforce.

Through this partnership, the AHA will offer a full suite of resources for hospitals and health systems to implement threat assessment and threat management principles or enhance their existing efforts.

The first resource is an issue brief examining threat assessment and threat management and steps to take should one identify a potential threat. We also have a new dedicated webpage, Mitigating Targeted Violence in Health Care Settings.

On the webpage, you also can access these resources from AHA’s Hospitals Against Violence and the FBI:

• Issue Brief: Mitigating the Risk of Violence
• FBI Resource: Making Prevention a Reality: Identifying, Assessing, and Managing the Threat of Targeted Attacks
• AHA Podcast: FBI Violence Prevention Strategies to Assess and Manage Threats Against Health Care

Watch for additional resources from the AHA and FBI, including a resource guide for hospitals and health systems developed with input from AHA members, case studies and podcasts.

FURTHER QUESTIONS

If you have further questions, please contact AHA at 800-424-4301 or email HospitalsAgainstViolence@aha.org.