Our colleagues, , at Epstein Becker Green, has a post on the Health Employment and Labor blog that will be of interest to many of our readers: “Healing the Healers: Preventing Workplace Violence in Health Care Settings.”
Following is an excerpt:
On April 17, the Joint Commission—a nonprofit organization that provides accreditations to health care organizations—issued a list of seven steps hospitals should take to improve safety and reduce the risk of workplace violence perpetrated by employees, patients, and visitors. While the seven steps are advisory rather than mandatory, health care organizations risk jeopardizing their accreditation status if they fail to take appropriate action in response to episodes of workplace violence.
The Joint Commission’s alert seeks to address what it characterizes as the prevalence of workplace violence in the health care industry, citing a 2015 report from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) suggesting that approximately 75% of workplace assaults reported annually occur in health care and social service. The Joint Commission suggests that health care workplaces are particularly susceptible to workplace violence because of the daily care of patients dealing with mental health issues. ...