Hospitals and healthcare facilities are fundamental to thriving communities. Community members must feel a level of trust in their local health systems, and healthcare leaders must establish an open, safe environment to best serve their local population.
With a nationwide increase in violence at healthcare facilities, leaders face new challenges in keeping their communities and healthcare workers safe. To respond to this issue adequately, OSHA is preparing to release new standards addressing workplace violence prevention in healthcare settings.
Despite these evolving challenges, advancements in technology offer new ways to strengthen safety. Through innovative solutions, leaders can provide stronger safety measures, faster response times, and efficient emergency communication.
How Safety in Healthcare Impacts a Community
Communities rely on their local health systems for a variety of services, including emergency needs, inpatient, and outpatient care. Health systems also partner with local organizations to implement programs designed to progress community wellness and well-being. To ensure synchronized collaboration, there must be a high level of trust between healthcare providers and the communities they serve.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 took a significant toll on the established trust between health systems and the general population. A 2022 study found that over one in two people reported decreased confidence that the healthcare system is well-equipped to handle major health crises, and the majority of people worry that medical science is being politicized. In recent years, the US has seen increased violence, including gun violence, against healthcare workers and other patients—these events lower feelings of safety towards healthcare facilities.
Focusing on building a culture of safety is becoming increasingly important. The reality is that if people don’t feel safe at a healthcare facility, they are more likely to delay or defer care until their conditions are severe, which lowers the probability of favorable outcomes.
A culture of safety is critical for healthcare workers too. Recent data shows:
- 82% of healthcare staff have experienced a workplace violence incident in the last year
- 25% of critical healthcare staff reported a willingness to quit over violence in their workplace
- 48% of respondents said on-the-job violence decreased their motivation and satisfaction
Experiencing violence also has a significant impact on the mental health of healthcare providers, including increased depression and burnout, and lower retention rates within the healthcare industry. This contributes to less healthcare staff available to treat the communities who need their care.
Reducing Workplace Violence in Healthcare Facilities
Healthcare safety is especially complex because of the volume of patients and visitors constantly moving in and out of facilities, in addition to the doctors, nurses, and extensive support staff most healthcare settings require. Addressing the needs of a healthcare facility requires a layered approach to safety, with components that empower healthcare workers to feel safe, so they can focus on taking care of their patients.
Innovations in wearable technology grant healthcare workers the power to signal the need for help in with the simplicity of a single button, whether an act of patient aggression that needs quick assistance or a facility-wide emergency requiring a universal response.
Most importantly for healthcare administrators, an increased sense of safety leads to better patient outcomes, which is the ultimate goal of every healthcare provider. According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Action on Patient Safety report, “Investing in patient safety positively impacts health outcomes, reduces costs related to patient harm, improves system efficiency, and helps in reassuring communities and restoring their trust in health care systems.”
Building Safer Communities Starts with a Multi-Layered Safety Approach
There are endless strategies to help tackle individual campus safety issues. Still, a multi-layered approach is the best way to build a culture of safety for a healthcare organization and its community. The most effective safety strategies account for the community as a whole and employ a system of interconnected and complementary layers, such as:
- Easy-to-use methods for summoning help
- Real-time visitor locating technology
- Interactive digital building and asset mapping
By combining multiple resources and systems for campus safety, there is increased incident awareness, reduced response time, and reassurance that a crisis can be located and de-escalated immediately when it occurs.
Reducing on-campus instances of violence in healthcare builds confidence in staff, patients, and the community at large.
Andrea Greco
Andrea Greco is SVP of Healthcare for CENTEGIX.
