Over the last year, MHA convened an interdisciplinary group of hospital staff to identify strategies to address incidents of violence in the workplace. This group consisted of nursing staff, security professionals, risk managers, and others. Its intent was to develop statewide standards and policies that provide a baseline for safety practices and to support adoption of said standards in every hospital. Knowing that each hospital and the communities that they serve are unique, the work group ensured that hospitals and healthcare facilities had the flexibility to include additional resources or interventions to support successful implementation.
As a result, the MHA Workplace Safety and Violence Prevention Work Group developed this Healthcare Safety Violence Prevention Guidance. Its key recommendations for hospitals include:
- Development of a broad-based multidisciplinary committee to design, implement, modify, and evaluate a workplace violence prevention program and drive system level improvements;
- Adopting policies and procedures supporting industry best practices for facility space design, security technology, and patient management; and
- Supporting and empowering employees by giving them, through education and training, the tools they need to manage aggressive behavior in patients, visitors, and others within a facility, and showing them appropriate methods for responding to and reporting incidents.
