Workplace Violence Prevention Resources

AHA Resources

AHA’s Hospitals Against Violence features the International Association for Healthcare Safety and Security – Active Shooter: Best Practices for the Worst Case

Preventing Workplace Violence (August 2018)

AHA Members in Action

Grady Health System in Atlanta, GA – Managing Workplace Safety and Reducing Workplace Violence case study and webinar

Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA - Reducing Health care Violence by Innovative Training and Valuable Partnerships

Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee, WI – Violence in the Hospital: Preventing Assaults Using a Clinical Approach

Broward Health in Fort Lauderdale, FL - Florida Hospital CEO Shares Thoughts Following Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooting

Mission Health in Asheville, NC – Mission Health’s Journey to Prevent Workplace Violence

INTEGRIS Health – Significant Threats: Domestic Violence and Forensic Patients: INTEGRIS Health has trained more than 500 staff on violence in the workplace, which includes a focus on domestic situations and forensic patients.

Minnesota Hospital Association Gap Analysis and Toolkit: The purpose of this gap analysis is to help healthcare facilities to implement best practices in order to prevent violence from patients to staff. The purpose is not to address disruptive behavior or staff to staff violence; those issues should be dealt with through other policies and/or procedures.

HealthSouth Violence Prevention White Paper: Recommendations and Resources 2015. The purpose of this document is to serve as a guide to help HealthSouth hospitals recognize the frequency and severity of workplace violence in health care in general, the risk of episodes of health care violence in each hospital specifically, and provide recommendations for how workplace violence prevention programs can be tailored to each hospital’s specific needs. This paper will also describe the required internal HealthSouth reporting mechanism for workplace violence events. To access this paper electronically, please go to HealthSouth’s intranet site/Corporate Services/Risk Management/Resources/Violence Prevention White Paper: Recommendations and Resources.

Florida Hospital's Active Shooter Plan Saves Lives, H&HN, August 22, 2016. Hospitals are not required to have an active shooter policy, but at Parrish Medical Center in Titusville, Fla., July 17, planning for such a situation prevented a seemingly random act of violence from becoming worse during an active shooter situation at the medical center.

“Keeping teens from being repeat victims of gunshot, knife wounds,” AHA News, August 18, 2016. Mark Gestring, M.D., a trauma surgeon at the University of Rochester (N.Y.) Medical Center (URMC), was fed up seeing teenagers arrive at the trauma center to be treated for gunshot or knife wounds, only to return weeks or months later with more serious or fatal injuries. He was fed up, but he didn’t give up. He pulled together a multidisciplinary team from URMC to develop the Rochester Youth Violence Partnership (RYVP), a 10-year-old violence intervention program that is designed to identify at-risk youth immediately after they are brought to the hospital for a knife or gunshot wound and protect them from further injury.

Keeping Gun Violence Victims Out of the ED with Substance Abuse Treatment, H&HN, November 6, 2015. Harborview Medical Center in east Seattle proposes a three-pronged approach to addressing gun violence, which includes intervening during the first visit and assigning a caseworker to each victim. A recent study found that people admitted to the hospital following gun violence in King County were much likelier than others to end up rehospitalized, arrested or murdered.

Preventing Violence in the Hospital and Community, Hospitals in the Pursuit of Excellence Webinar, 2015. Violence is a serious safety issue for many communities and hospitals across the United States. Pamela Thompson, CEO of the American Organization of Nurse Executives, will introduce AONE's recently released toolkit for mitigating violence in the health care workplace and discuss the implications for leadership practice. Stephen Leff, co-director of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Violence Prevention Initiative, will address violence prevention in schools, primary care sites, and the emergency department, focusing upon empirically supported prevention programs and hospital training in trauma-informed care. His presentation will illustrate how hospital-based violence prevention efforts can serve as a national model.

National and State Resources

Oregon Hospitals Release Workplace Violence Prevention Toolkit August 10, 2018

PDF Toolkit

The Joint Commission's Sentinel Event Alert 59: Physical and verbal violence against health care workers, April 17, 2018

Johns Hopkins Continuum of Disruptive Behaviors at Work. A subcommittee of the Joint Risk Assessment Team examined the behaviors seen in previous Johns Hopkins workplace violence cases and classified various behaviors across a spectrum adapted from Gary Namie, PhD to develop the Johns Hopkins Continuum of Disruptive Behaviors at Work. Lists of specific actions for each concerning behavior emerged as part of ongoing research on disruptive behaviors at work and early intervention and prevention of workplace violence.

Kansas and Missouri Hospital Associations’ Letter to HHS, Sept. 25, 2017

WSHA to release workplace violence prevention toolkit, Washington State Hospital Association, April 5, 2017

The alarming stats on violence against nurses -- Some hospitals are taking the issue into their own hands, The Advisory Board Daily Briefing, December 7, 2016

American College of Emergency Physicians, Resources and Papers on Violence in hospital and community Setting

American Medical Association policy to bolster safety for health care workers

50 State Survey Criminal Laws Protecting Health Professionals, Emergency Nurses Association, Updated January 2014

Secure Design: IAHSS issues guidance for facility planning, Health Facilities Management Magazine, September 1, 2012. To help build effective security features into each renovation and new construction project, the International Association for Healthcare Security & Safety (IAHSS) appointed a task force to develop design guidelines for use by architects, and security and design staff members. Called the IAHSS "Security Design Guidelines for Healthcare Facilities," the project was funded by the International Healthcare Security & Safety Foundation and published in April 2012. It comprises a general guideline as well as specific areas of emphasis and various subguidelines, all of which will be modified, expanded and deleted in a continuous review process.

Federal Government Resources

Active Shooter Planning and Response in a Healthcare Setting, Healthcare & Public Health Sector Coordinating Council (Updated January 24, 2017)

OSHA requests comments, schedules meeting on standard to prevent workplace violence in healthcare, social assistance, Federal Register notice, December 6, 2016

Workplace Safety and Health: Additional Efforts Needed to Help Protect Health Care Workers from Workplace Violence, Government Accountability Office, March 2016

OSHA webpage focuses on preventing violence in health care settings. The Occupational Safety & Health Administration has created a new webpage featuring strategies and tools for preventing workplace violence in health care settings. According to OSHA, the rate of serious workplace violence incidents was more than four times higher in health care settings than the private industry average. The webpage is designed to support OSHA's Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Healthcare and Social Service Workers, which describes the five components of an effective workplace violence prevention program.

OSHA Identifies Health Care Susceptible to Workplace Violence, AHA Health Care Labor Report, A directive from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The directive, Enforcement Procedures for Investigating or Inspecting Workplace Violence Incidents, establishes OSHA’s general enforcement policies and procedures and highlights the steps that OSHA field offices should take in reviewing incidents of workplace violence when considering whether to initiate an inspection in those sectors, like health care, identified by OSHA as susceptible to workplace violence. The directive is meant to provide guidance regarding both how an OSHA workplace violence case is developed and what steps will be taken to assist employers in addressing the issue of workplace violence.

New OSHA tools to help prevent workplace violence, , Hospitals Facilities Management Magazine, December 4, 2015. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) unveiled a new Web page developed to provide employers and workers with strategies and tools to prevent workplace violence in health care settings. The Web page, part of OSHA'sWorker Safety in Hospitals website, complements the updated Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Healthcare and Social Service Workers, published earlier this year. The new Web page includes real-life examples from health care organizations that have incorporated successful workplace violence prevention programs, and models of how a workplace violence-prevention program can complement and enhance an organization's strategies for compliance and a culture of safety.