Contact your legislator in support of preventing workplace violence!
Healthcare professionals face an elevated risk of workplace violence from patients and other individuals; as much as five times higher in hospitals than the national average.
What would further legislation do?
Healthcare professionals face an elevated risk of workplace violence from patients and other individuals; as much as five times higher in hospitals than the national average. These alarming numbers both exacerbate the current staffing crisis and ultimately jeopardize patient safety and quality outcomes.
Healthcare providers, particularly nurses and emergency room medical staff, face challenging situations every day in service of their community.
Why is it important?
Nurses, physicians, and other hospital staff are subject to various forms of violence including physical attacks, intimidation, and threats of harm to themselves or their families. Verbal threats can have a significant impact on an individual’s personal safety, as well as the performance of their life-saving work
National data shows that hospital workers are five times more likely to require time off from work due to violence-related injuries. OSHA reports that 75% of nearly 25,000 assaults reported annually occurred in healthcare settings. Only 30% of nurses and 26% of ED physicians actually report incidents of violence.
Healthcare Dive (11/29, Mensik) reports, “The CMS is warning hospitals of their duty to protect patients and employees from on-site violence amid growing concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting staffing shortages have spurred a rise in violent incidents.” The article adds, “Hospitals must effectively mitigate risks to ensure patients and staff are safe as part of their Medicare certification, the agency said in a Monday” memo (PDF), “noting that some facilities have received citations for failing to do so.” Reports “suggest violent workplace incidents have risen throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.” One “September survey from the American College of Emergency Physicians found that two-thirds of doctors working in emergency departments reported being assaulted in the past year alone.” The survey also found 45% of physicians noted a spike in incidents in the past five years.
What are we asking for?
We are asking legislators to support legislation which extends protections to healthcare providers facing an unprecedented amount of workplace violence in recent years. Please support legislation to keep our healthcare heroes safe!