The American Hospital Association’s (AHA) American Organization for Nursing Leadership affiliate and the Emergency Nurses Association announced on October 25 that they have updated their Guiding Principles on Mitigating Violence in the Workplace.
According to AHA Chief Nursing Officer and CEO of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership Robyn Begley, the principles, which were originally released in 2015, have been updated using new research and incorporating best practices. The update also includes a toolkit to help hospitals customize their workplace violence prevention programs.
Both organizations recommend healthcare facilities adopt the following principles when expanding their workplace violence prevention efforts:
- Ground workplace violence prevention programs using evidence-based strategies.
- Employ comprehensive solutions, recognizing the intersecting layers of intrusive, consumer, relational and organizational violence.
- Mitigate workplace violence by establishing support through the breadth of the organization.
- Promote a culture of safety to create a healthy work environment
- Ensure interprofessional teams (leadership, staff, patients and visitors) are committed to reporting incidents of violence and acting to prevent workplace violence.
- Emphasize accountability, regardless of role or discipline, to uphold foundational standards of nonviolent behavior.
“While health care workers have long accepted violence as an unavoidable part of the job, being shoved, kicked, hit, harassed, intimidated, yelled at or even worse is NEVER part of anyone’s job,” Begley said.
The announcement of the updated principles came only three days after two employees were fatally shot at Methodist Dallas Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.
