Healthcare Safety Toolkit Library

Environmental disasters/emergencies have the potential to disrupt services for extensive periods. These hazards may even require relocation to alternative locations. When completing the HVA, don’t be afraid to think outside of the box when considering environmental hazards. Environmental disasters may not just be natural disasters such as tornados or hurricanes. They may also be gas leaks, explosions and failures of utilities such as electricity. Environmental disasters could also be man-made hazards such as bombs and bioterrorism. Possible scenarios can be numerous and it can be easy to get overwhelmed. Care should be taken to develop your organization’s response, contingency plan, communication plan and staff training for each likely scenario.

Medical emergencies are the most common event physician office practices should be prepared to respond to. Unfortunately, individuals may arrive who have underestimated the severity of their symptoms, there is no emergency room nearby or they lack the resources to go to the emergency room.

Violence in the Emergency Department: Panel of Experts

This session will build the Violence in the ED: The Magnitude and Impact conversation. Their discussion is based on results of a recent survey that was conducted across the membership of the LHA Trust Funds and will be further augmented with open-mic questions and concerns from the members of the audience.

Topics include: Violence and Victims, The Aggressors and Causes, Triggers, Real-Time Experiences, The Aftermath, and Prevention.

A document developed jointly by the Emergency Nurses Association and the American Organization of Nurse Executives to address healthcare issues with workplace violence. The toolkit discusses how to deal with lateral violence as well as patient and family violence in healthcare. This is a valuable guide for nurse leaders to address zero-tolerance policies, risk factors for the organization, workplace violence prevention plans and staff training.

An alert published by The Joint Commission (TJC) in 2010 and revised in 2019 to address violence in healthcare. TJC compiled information from 365 reports of violence in healthcare facilities submitted to their Sentinel Event Database from 2010 – 2018. This alert contains information regarding contributing factors and recommended actions that healthcare organizations can take to reduce the risk of violence.

A resource manual created by the Public Services Health & Safety Association to address workplace violence. The toolkit was designed to assist healthcare organizations in developing effective security programs. This comprehensive guide contains extensive information such as roles and responsibilities of the security program, policy templates, security guard training information, a list of necessary policies/procedures and many other valuable resources.

It is essential to understand a security program. These resources help build and sustain a security program in healthcare. Sources delve further into risk considerations of law enforcement's presence in the emergency room and guidance to infant abductions.

Although it is healthcare's goal to maintain a safe environment at all times, violence remains a significant concern today. It is vital to implement processes to prevent workplace violence. Security practices can include an array of methods. The following documents provide best practices and alternative approaches that may be applied when handling violent encounters.