Violence Prevention Toolkit

Guidelines/Recommendations

OSHA Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Healthcare & Social Service Workers

This booklet consists of general guidelines related to violence occurring in a workplace environment. It includes risk factors to identify violence, assess workplace violence programs and train and educate staff. It also provides guidelines such as a workplace violence checklist, incident reporting and record review.

Assessment tools

ASHRM Workplace Violence Toolkit

This toolkit, created by ASHRM, takes a proactive approach in preventing workplace violence. It includes policies and procedures, articles and education for staff to identify and reduce risks within the organization. It addresses violence affecting staff to staff, physician to staff, patient to staff and visitor/family to staff and provides interventions to deal with these occurrences.

Guidelines/Recommendations

Sentinel Event Alert: Workplace Violence

This sentinel event alert, published by The Joint Commission, was published to bring awareness of violence currently faced by healthcare facilities. It was developed to assist organizations by identifying risks, implementing interventions to reduce adverse events, training staff accordingly and evaluating processes in place.

Policy Templates

Sample Workplace Violence Prevention Plan

This workplace violence plan sample can be used to assist in developing your own organizational plan. The sample plan is written from a leadership commitment perspective indicating that prevention of violence is a high priority. The plan outlines all aspects including responsibility, authority, assessment, training, monitoring and investigation.

Guidelines/Recommendations

Violence: Occupational Hazards in Hospitals

An educational document provided by NIOSH on workplace violence. The information provided is based on research and covers violence risk factors, prevention strategies and dealing with the consequences of violence. The publication is written very matter-of-factly and is an excellent educational resource to use when training staff.

Guidelines/Recommendations

Article: Joint Commission - 7 Ways Hospitals Can Prevent Workplace Violence

This is a short article, published by Becker’s Hospital Review, that sets forth seven steps to prevent workplace violence. These seven steps were developed from information learned from the Sentinel Event Alert #59 in April 2018.

Guidelines/Recommendations

APNA Seclusion & Restraint Standards of Practice

This resource is provided as a bundle relative to seclusion and restraints standards of practice. It discusses leadership roles in the use of restraint and seclusion therapy, appropriate training of staff, and performance improvement to evaluate compliance with standards provided. It reviews standards in depth to guide organizations to comply with regulations set in place.

AHRQ Reducing Workplace Violence with TeamSTEPPS

TeamSTEPPS provides resources to integrate processes and non-violent interventions to safely manage disruptive and aggressive patients.

Article: Hospital Advisory - Should Hospital Security Officers be Armed with Weapons?

This article provides pros and cons of whether security officers should be armed while working in healthcare facilities.

Run Hide Fight - Surviving an Active Shooter

This video provides techniques on handling an active shooter situation.

Articles

Workplace Violence Prevention Training Course for Nurses

This training tool is designed to assist healthcare workers in understanding the scope and nature of workplace violence issues.

Checklists

Contraband Checklist

This checklist is to assess patients upon entry into a facility for items that may be used to hurt themselves or others.

Policy Templates

Patient Observation Policy

This policy defines the different levels of observation that may be implemented to monitor patients effectively. It discusses the roles and responsibilities of staff monitoring patients requiring observation. It addresses education and training for staff who observe high-risk patients as well as monitoring of procedures utilized to safely care for these type of patients.

Checklists

BVC Violence Checklist

This is a risk scoring tool to assist staff in recognizing a patient at risk for violence. It defines behaviors to assess that may lead to violence and provides staff with an objective scale to identify patients at high risk for violent behavior.

Policy Templates

Sample Policy for Workplace Violence

A sample policy on workplace violence prevention that can be used as a guide in developing your own organizational policy. This sample is brief and to-the-point, making it easy for staff to understand.

Checklists

Behavioral Health Environmental Checklist

A basic checklist to help identify risks specific to the behavioral health population in a behavioral health patient care setting. This simple risk assessment will help reduce risks to patient safety in this population which may not be considered a danger in other settings.