According to the American Nurses Association, “Nurses are at high risk for assaults and violence in the workplace due to their close proximity to patients. According to a Press Ganey Survey Report (2021), two nurses per hour are assaulted in the acute care setting.” (Read the full article: End Nurse Abuse*American Nurses Association [nursingworld.org])
Of course, nurses aren’t the only roles within a hospital system that are close to patients and at risk for workplace violence. This is why this topic is important for us all.
Houston Methodist defines workplace violence as “intentional behavior that threatens the safety or well-being of HM employees, visitors or patients.” This conduct includes verbal or written communication intended to threaten, insult, demean or invoke fear. It can further be categorized as either disruptive or violent behavior.
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Disruptive Behavior: Inappropriate conduct or pattern of conduct that creates a risk of danger, impedes the delivery of care or hinders operations.
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Violent Behavior: Infliction of actual physical harm to others, intentional damage to HM property, and unauthorized possession of any weapon, regardless of government licensing.
What is HM doing to impact workplace violence?
The System Workplace Environment Council, in partnership with DEI, HR, Security and other leaders across the system, has been continuing to improve processes to increase safety for our staff. This includes new policies, adding risk assessment tools to Epic, and ways to immediately activate teams to assist staff in danger, such as duress buttons. One recent safety change was to update ID badges to list first name and last initial only, which helps protect our team members’ identities.
Informatics and IT are also partnering to update procedures for disruptive or violent patients by including new flags in Epic. These flags will allow staff in every care setting to more readily identify patients who are at risk for disruptive or violent behavior. The violent flag can also trigger notifications to security as previously violent patients are registered or admitted to a hospital, so they can proactively assess situations.
Next Steps
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Updates to the current System Patient and Guest Disruptive Behavior policy to include the new Epic flags.
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Education rollout for the updated policy and procedure, reminders about patients’ rights, criteria for flagging, and how the flags in Epic will work.
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Epic changes planned to go live in early June.
