Creating Safer Workplaces A Guide to Mitigating Violence in Health Care Settings

October 2021

Introduction

Hospital and health system leaders who continually emphasize the importance of physical and psychological well-being promote cultures that heighten safety in their organizations. They embed procedures into daily operations to instill a safety mindset at all levels, entrench security and safety functions in their enterprise strategies, and design their organizations to maximize safety. They also collaborate broadly and creatively across their institutions to prioritize these efforts.

As part of this guide, we offer leaders and implementers case studies that exemplify how a range of organizations have addressed workplace violence using both best practices and individual solutions that can be tailored based on an organization’s size, resources and culture.

Beyond this guide, we encourage leaders to follow IAHSS design and industry guidelines to create safe spaces and establish policies, procedures and programs that incorporate global safety best practices, benchmark security operations and prevent violence.

Based on a multidisciplinary strategy, the guide addresses how teams can help curb violence in health care facilities, including:

  1. Focusing on well-being to promote team health and safety.
  2. Forging strong and synergistic relationships between security and police departments, clinical groups and operational leaders.
  3. Promoting data-driven approaches to decision-making.
  4. Making the role of security staff everyone’s job (i.e., engaging team members).
  5. Embedding safety and security in existing workflows and electronic medical records.

View the entire guide below.