Issue Brief: Building a Safe Workplace and Community - Violence Mitigation in a Culture of Safety

Introduction

In 2021, the American Hospital Association’s Hospitals Against Violence (HAV) Advisory Group developed the Building a Safe Workplace and Community framework to guide health care leaders in their efforts to mitigate workplace violence. The framework established four essential pillars of a comprehensive violence mitigation strategy: (1) culture of safety; (2) violence intervention; (3) trauma support; and (4) risk mitigation. Leadership is at the center of the framework and employs data, education, and accountability to advance these pillars. For each pillar, the Advisory Group develops an issue brief that does a deep dive into that area of focus.

This issue brief, the third of four in the series, examines how hospitals’ violence mitigation efforts can fit effectively into an organization’s culture of safety strategy. The brief includes thought provoking questions to facilitate discussion of how violence mitigation can be integrated seamlessly into the larger framework of patient and worker safety initiatives, supporting an overall culture of safety. It also explores strategies that leaders could take to best support a culture that mitigates violence as part of larger enterprise efforts.

View the detailed report below.

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