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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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AHRQ Reducing Workplace Violence with TeamSTEPPS
TeamSTEPPS provides resources to integrate processes and non-violent interventions to safely manage disruptive and aggressive patients.
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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.
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Run Hide Fight - Surviving an Active Shooter
This video provides techniques on handling an active shooter situation.
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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.
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.
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Contraband Checklist
This checklist is to assess patients upon entry into a facility for items that may be used to hurt themselves or others.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.