Protecting Health Care Workers and Communities from Violence

America’s hospitals and health systems are places of healing, hope and health. They strive to deliver quality care every hour of every day for everyone and do so in the safest possible environment for patients and care teams.

However, we have seen an increase in violent actions and threats against health care workers and in health care settings. Federal data shows that health care workers are five times more likely to experience workplace violence than workers overall. Just last month a social media post alleged active planning of a coordinated, multi-city terrorist attack targeting hospitals; thankfully the FBI last week said after an extensive investigation and intelligence review, they did not identify “any specific credible threat targeted against hospitals in any U.S. city.”

For nearly a decade, the AHA’s Hospitals Against Violence initiative has shone a light on how hospitals and health systems are working to heal victims of violence as well as their communities, prevent further acts of violence, and address violence in the workplace. The AHA collaborates with partner organizations to develop and share many resources for hospitals to use to address community and workplace violence.

Because violence can compromise access to and delivery of care, create a difficult work environment, and impact the overall safety and quality of the health care experience,  the AHA worked with the FBI to share a resource on mitigating targeted violence in health care settings. Other resources include podcasts and webinars, as well as issue briefs focused on providing trauma support for hospital and health system team members and exploring how violence mitigation efforts can fit effectively into an organization’s culture of safety.

In addition, the Hospitals Against Violence initiative has shared examples from hospitals and health systems across the country of how they are addressing workplace violence using both best practices and individual solutions that can be tailored based on an organization’s size, resources and culture. Strategies include hospital security and threat assessment teams collaborating with local police departments and other community partners on violence mitigation tactics such as de-escalation training, staff duress alarms, enhanced surveillance security technology and more effective visitor identification policies, among many other measures. Other hospitals are decreasing incidents of workplace violence by upgrading their incident reporting system, boosting prevention education and meticulously tracking data to help prevent future incidents.

While hospitals and health systems continue to enhance efforts to keep patients, caregivers and communities safe, the AHA continues to advocate for Congress to pass legislation that would provide health care workers federal protections from violence, similar to those that apply to aircraft and airport workers. The AHA spearheaded the introduction of bipartisan, bicameral legislation during the last Congress and is working to have legislation introduced in this Congress.

Violence has no place in our communities or in health care settings. We must keep working together to end the cycle of violence and ensure that our nation’s caregivers can focus on what they do best — advancing health for patients and communities.