Dive Brief:
- Violence against healthcare professionals in the workplace is underreported and understudied, according to a recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
- Researchers found the healthcare industry is statistically the most violent non-law-enforcement industry in the U.S. and recommended an additional study to research the best ways to reduce the risks of assault.
- The study adds violence in this category is shown to be underreported by as much as 70%, meaning the true impact is estimated to be significantly higher.
Dive Insight:
The article focuses not just on the risks to healthcare providers, but also on the issues around why these risks continue unabated.
Providers often feel assaults against them are not taken seriously, according to the researchers. Also, providers themselves often excuse patients' violent behavior because they are coming from a position of compassion and realize the behavior may stem from issues including mental health and substance misuse problems, the researchers noted.
Another factor may be many patient assaults are made with the fists, feet, spitting, etc.
"We don't want to treat patients like they're criminals or the enemy," Dr. James Phillips of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center told Reuters.
"So we probably make excuses when we shouldn't, and we overlook patients who are intoxicated or on drugs, and other patients who have altered mental status because of chronic dementia or acute delirium," Phillips added.
Experts have previously noted additional challenges around screening patients in triage and hospitals' more recent concerns for not offending people for the sake of patient satisfaction, as well as the removal or downplaying of metal detectors or security to improve the customer experience.
Phillips says there is no clear solution due to the limited research, but that possibilities include being tough on verbal assaults to thwart escalation; getting laws changed to make a physical attacks on healthcare providers a felony; and taking a cue from the Veterans Affairs system, which flags patient charts to mark previous instances of violence.