Do You Need Assistance Developing a Workplace Violence Policy for Your Healthcare Organization?
Workplace Violence in healthcare is becoming an epidemic and situations can be difficult to manage for many reasons. It can take place in many forms in the workplace, and when it does, it affects us all.
Before an incident occurs, it is critical that your staff be prepared to recognize and respond to a situation. An incident can impact the safety of your patients, residents, clients, members and the safety and performance of your employees along with overall operations of your organization.
Workplace violence is any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site. It ranges from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and even homicide. Homicide is currently the fourth-leading cause of fatal occupational injuries in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), of the 4,547 fatal workplace injuries that occurred in the United States in 2010, 506 were workplace homicides. In addition, homicide is the leading cause of death for women in the workplace.
Nearly 2 million American workers report having been victims of workplace violence each year. In 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data reported healthcare and social assistance workers were victims of approximately 11,370 assaults by persons; a greater than 13% increase over the number of such assaults reported in 2009. Almost 19% of these assaults occurred in nursing and residential care facilities alone. Unfortunately, many more incidents go unreported.
For more information on this subject, MEMIC will be providing a free webinar to customers on November 20th from 10-11 a.m. In this one-hour webinar you will learn how to identify, prevent, prepare for, mitigate, respond to and recover from different forms of workplace violence. In addition, we will review the resources available so you can develop a workplace violence policy and/or procedure for your organization.
To register for this free webinar or to find further information on MEMIC workshops and webinars, please click here.
Resources available include those on our website along with the American Nurses Association and OSHA.
