Violence in the workplace continues to be an area that risk managers need to be proactively preparing their institutions to prevent. At the same time, the risk manager needs to know what to do in the event they are faced with an immediate situation. This tool kit is designed to assist in both of these areas.
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The Joint Commission, Improving Patient & Worker Safety: Opportunities for Synergy, Collaboration, & Innovation
This monograph is intended to stimulate greater awareness of the potential synergies between patient and worker health and safety activities. Using actual case studies, it describes a range of topic areas and settings in which opportunities exist to improve patient safety and worker health and safety activities.
OSHA, Safety and Health Management Systems: A Road Map for Hospitals
A safety and health management system is a tool to help turn this situation around: a proven, flexible approach to proactively and continually address workplace safety and health issues.1 It provides the overarching framework for planning, implementing, evaluating, and improving all workplace safety and health management efforts.
OSHA, Safe Patient Handling Programs: Effectiveness & Cost Savings
The Safe Patient Handling Programs: Effectiveness and Cost Savings document gives administrators a business case for investing in safe patient handling programs, policies, and equipment, based on real-life findings from hospitals across the United States that have successfully implemented these programs.
Association of Occupational Health Professionals in Healthcare Alliance
Beyond Getting Started: A Resource Guide for Implementing a Safe Patient Handling Program in the Acute Care Setting
This resource guide addresses patient handling with the goal of providing the necessary tools for the occupational health professional (OHP) to implement a safe patient handling program. There is a great deal of emerging information, and this resource guide contributes toward the consolidation of that information.
Occupational Health Surveillance Program, Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Moving into the Future: Promoting safe patient handling for worker and patient safety in Massachusetts hospitals
The risks of injury to health care workers associated with the manual handling of patients are widely recognized. Findings from the survey of Massachusetts hospitals included in this report indicate that most Massachusetts hospitals have already taken steps to improve patient handling practices to protect workers and patients, but that more remains to be done.
AHA Issue Brief: Building a Safe Workplace and Community — Mitigating Risk of Violence
The American Hospital Association’s Hospitals Against Violence (HAV) initiative hosted the American Society for Health Care Risk Management (ASHRM) for a facilitated dialogue to explore challenges and current strategies to mitigate the risk of violence. The discussion fostered an exchange of ideas and solutions that informed this issue brief and accompanying case studies.
From AHA:
In 2021, HAV developed the Building a Safe Workplace and Community framework to guide health care leaders in their efforts to prevent and mitigate violence.
This issue brief examines risk mitigation and marks the first in a series that expand on each domain of the framework: culture of safety, violence intervention, trauma support and risk mitigation. This issue brief is an outgrowth of a series of discussions between hospital and risk management leaders. The brief shares considerations when assessing potential risks, strategies to mitigating violence and insights on making the care environment safer.
Patient Safety Awareness Week: March 12-18
Includes three free webinars hosted by IHI.
2023’s Patient Safety Awareness Week, led by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (from IHI), is March 12-18!
From IHI:
Patient Safety Awareness Week is an annual recognition event intended to encourage everyone to learn more about health care safety. During this week, IHI seeks to advance important discussions locally and globally, and inspire action to improve the safety of the health care system — for patients and the workforce.
Patient Safety Awareness Week serves as a dedicated time and platform for growing awareness about patient safety and recognizing the work already being done.
Offerings include three free webinars:
- March 14 | 12-1pm ET: Back to Our Purpose: The Reboot of Safety
- March 15 | 3-4pm ET: Partnering with Patients to Improve Diagnostic Safety
- March 6 | 11am-12pm ET: Incorporating CPPS™ Certification into Academic Curriculum
Find out more from IHI here.
MHA Members Issue a United Call to Action on Violence in Healthcare Facilities
Principles will be adapted within each organization’s Codes of Conduct.
Healthcare organizations across the commonwealth will adopt a common set of principles within their Patient and Family Codes of Conduct as part of a unified call to action to protect healthcare workers and the patients in their care. The United Code of Conduct is part of a new Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association (MHA) report: “Workplace Violence at Massachusetts Healthcare Facilities: An Untenable Situation & A Call to Protect the Workforce,” which sheds light on the escalation of violent incidents in Massachusetts healthcare facilities and the extensive measures being taken to prevent them.
Last week, the MHA Board of Trustees endorsed these United Code of Conduct Principles. They include measures to promote a safe and respectful environment, examples of what potential violations look like, proposed consequences for violations, and recommendations for maintaining the principles long-term. The effort is a part of MHA’s larger workforce initiative to support and grow the commonwealth’s base of talented healthcare professionals.
“Healthcare workers are under more pressure than at any time in history, and violence will never be a part of their job description. Hospital and health system leaders recognize this, and are doing everything in their power to mitigate unacceptable behavior in their facilities. But they cannot do it without the help and support of community members,” said Steve Walsh, President & CEO of MHA. “This effort is about taking a stand for the wellbeing of caregivers in a way that every one of us can control.”
“These principles set firm, direct expectations among everyone who enters a healthcare facility in Massachusetts – no matter where that might be,” said Therese Hudson-Jinks, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, Chief Nursing Officer, Chief Experience Office, and Senior Vice President of Patient Care Services at Tufts Medical Center. “Healthcare facilities are a place of refuge. Great patient care is only possible when all our employees — from nurses and physicians to security personnel and administrative staff – feel safe and secure.”
Over the past three years, MHA has conducted a monthly survey of Massachusetts hospitals to track the frequency, location, and types of violence committed on their campuses. The 56 responding acute and post-acute hospitals across the commonwealth provided data revealing that every 38 minutes in a Massachusetts healthcare facility there is a case of physical assault, verbal abuse, or threats made against someone – most often a clinician or staff member. Nurses report the most (38%) incidents of workplace violence, followed by security personnel (27%), and other clinical staff (19%).
The new report includes data on abusive incidents, as well as the solutions MHA members are championing to protect healthcare professionals. Violence prevention has been a long-standing priority for Massachusetts hospitals and health systems.
MHA has again filed comprehensive violence prevention legislation at the State House as the new legislative session begins; the association also serves as a forum for leaders to share knowledge, establish best practices, and construct reforms around issues of worker safety. This work is led by the MHA’s Healthcare Safety and Violence Prevention Workgroup, which is composed of more than 70 experts in security, nursing, human resources, and more.
To learn more about the United Code of Conduct and the workplace violence crisis, please reference “Workplace Violence at Massachusetts Healthcare Facilities: An Untenable Situation & A Call to Protect the Workforce.”
WEBINAR | Care of Infants with RSV in the NICU
On December 19, 2022, MHA hosted this webinar with four key objectives:
- Discuss nursing-care-related issues for non-traditional NICU patients;
- Identify non-traditional patients that may benefit from NICU admission;
- Discuss respiratory-support-related interventions for non-traditional
NICU admissions; and - Assess how a non-traditional NICU admission protocol might be
implemented in your health system.
WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE:
Presentation slides are available below: