Healthcare facility leaders must play a role in protecting staff members from workplace violence, Lisa DiBlasi Moorehead, MSN, EdD, RN, wrote in an editorial published by The Joint Commission, for which she is an associate nurse executive.
Four of Moorehead's recommendations to combat violence:
1. Healthcare leaders should provide hospitals with personnel and resources to predict and prevent violence.
2. Leaders should foster a “reporting culture." Workplace violence often goes unreported due to inadequate knowledge of what constitutes "violence," time constraints and other factors. To address this issue, healthcare leaders must clearly define workplace violence and reassure workers their concerns will be taken seriously.
3. Leaders must assess an organization's violence risk. Ideally, they should evaluate the violence rate within individual departments in addition to the organization as a whole, using resources such as electronic surveys for staff.
4. Leaders should provide training and spread staff awareness. Staff training in violence prevention should occur at least once a year, along with daily huddles or newsletters reminding workers about workplace safety.
Click here for the full list of measures Moorehead recommends.