Dive Brief:
- In the wake of a fatal murder/suicide in Texas and a wave of violence that is reaching into hospitals and medical centers around the country, some providers are seeking to create a more secure environment for patient care through the formation of their own in-house, fully-accredited police departments.
- In a 2014 survey, nearly 80% of nurses reported being attacked on the job within the past year. Healthcare workers experience the most nonfatal workplace violence compared to other professions by a wide margin, with attacks on them accounting for almost 70% of all nonfatal workplace assaults causing days away from work, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported by Scientific American.
- So far, Indiana University Health La Porte Hospital has sworn in five officers for their new department, according to The Times of Northwest Indiana. In addition, WANE News Channel 15 reported last September that Indiana's Parkview Hospital hired 19 new officers. Indiana's Fox 28 also reported South Bend's Memorial Hospital formed its police department last August after Indiana became the 29th state to make it legal for hospitals to form their own police departments. Ohio also got on the radar when Adena Regional Medical Center formed its police department, according to the Chillicothe Gazette.
Dive Insight:
Statistics about violence in hospitals make it clear that health leaders haven't done enough to protect nurses and other staffers who put their safety on the line. Violence has been a problem in EDs for quite some time, but nurses have gained little ground when it comes to creating a safer workplace.
Sadly, there's academic evidence to support workers' resigned attitude toward violence on the job. "Nurses who have reported attacks say that acceptance of the violence runs through hospital administrations as well as the judicial system," wrote journalist Roni Jacobson in Scientific American's article on violence in hospitals.
Another piece of research published last July in the Journal of Emergency Nursing further underscores the point. To do their study, researchers interviewed 46 ED nurses, who described sympathetic supervisors but passive hospital administrations. Yet another study, a 2011 ENA survey, found that about half of nurses said that the hospital took no action after they were assaulted, and in another 20% of cases, the perpetrator was issued a warning. Ten percent of nurses said they were blamed for the incident.
Unfortunately, while it's good to see that hospitals are finally taking significant steps to protect their staff and facilities, it's possible this strategy will backfire. After all, hospitals generally have no experience training and managing police officers. If they end up creating a sort of low-level officer, rather than relying on real police officers who have the right to carry weapons and make binding arrests, this solution could cause more problems than it solves.
Want to read more? You may want to read this story on active shooters and other violence: How hospitals should prepare.