Violence Prevention Toolkit

Violence in healthcare has escalated over the years and constitutes approximately 74% of workplace violence events reported by Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is imperative that organizational leaders develop plans to prevent violence and train staff to identify and de-escalate violent behaviors as well as respond appropriately when an event occurs. This toolkit contains many resources to help facilitate the development of comprehensive violence prevention programs within your organization.

Violence Prevention Best Practices

Implementing a Violence Prevention program requires an organized approach focusing on planning, identifying and engaging stakeholders, development and implementation of policies and procedures, prevention strategies and staff education. Provided here are best practice resources.

  • Guidelines/Recommendations

    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.

    TAGS: Violence, Guidelines, Trained, Educate, booklet, Checklist

  • Assessment tools

    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.

    TAGS: Preventing, Patient, Staff, Organization

  • Guidelines/Recommendations

    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.

    TAGS: Healthcare, Joint, Commission, Training, Staff, Interventions, Facilities

Safety and Security of Violence Prevention

Safety and security are a great place for your organization to start when assessing or building your program. Good security and safety measures are provided as a resource.

  • Guidelines/Recommendations

    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.

    TAGS: Resources, seclusion, Practice, therapy

  • AHRQ Reducing Workplace Violence with TeamSTEPPS

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

    TAGS: non-violent, Managers, aggressive, Patient, Integrated, STEPPS

  • 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.

    TAGS: Healthcare, Facilities, Article, pros, cons

Violence Safety Policies and Tools

It is essential to have up-to-date policies, procedures and forms to support your violence prevention program. This section contains samples that can be used to help you develop your own customized documents.

  • Checklists

    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.

    TAGS: facility, hurt, items

  • Policy Templates

    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.

    TAGS: responsibilities, safely, Patients, observation, implemented

  • Checklists

    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.

    TAGS: Violent, Risk, scoring, Assistant, Staff, providers, objective, Risks