The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that healthcare workers’ risk of injury due to workplace violence is five times greater than that of workers in other industries.
Healthcare careers entail demanding and dangerous duties, ranging from exposure to infectious diseases to violence from patients, families, and other visitors. More stressors have emerged in recent years, including a surge of patients, longer working hours, shortages of supplies, and increased workplace violence in healthcare.
Unsurprisingly, many healthcare workers feel unsafe at work, leading to increased turnover and worker dissatisfaction. Healthcare workers are also reporting higher levels of fatigue, burnout, and grief than before the pandemic. Because the rise in workplace violence has shown no indication of improvement, healthcare organizations and employees are rallying behind the enactment of laws that will enhance protection and help decrease workplace violence in healthcare. Here’s how lawmakers are responding to the ongoing violence against healthcare workers.
Federal Legislation
Despite the uptick in workplace violence in healthcare and its harmful effects on the healthcare system, no federal law protects healthcare employees from workplace assault or intimidation. By contrast, there are federal laws criminalizing assault and intimidation against airline employees. The Department of Justice has prioritized prosecutions under those federal statutes, given the rise in violent behavior on commercial aircraft during the COVID-19 pandemic. Vigorous enforcement of federal aviation laws has fostered a safe traveling environment, deters violent behavior, and ensures offenders are appropriately punished.
The bipartisan Safety from Violence for Healthcare Employees (SAVE) Act (H.R. 2584/S. 2768), introduced in April 2023 but yet to pass, would provide protections similar to those granted to flight crews, flight attendants, and airport workers.
The SAVE Act would make it a federal crime to knowingly assault an individual employed at a hospital while performing their duties, and as a result, interfering with the performance of those duties. The bill would impose fines, imprisonment, or both for assaulting hospital employees. The legislation includes an exemption if the crime results from mental illness. This ensures if a patient, family member, or visitor assaults a healthcare worker as a consequence of their behavioral health issue, that person cannot be prosecuted.
Similarly, introduced in April 2023 but not yet passed, the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act (H.R.2663) aims to provide health and social service workers with increased protections by:
- Compelling OSHA to issue an interim final standard in one year and a final standard within 42 months, requiring employers within the healthcare and social service sectors to develop and implement a workplace violence prevention plan
- Identifying risks, specifying solutions, and requiring training, reporting, and incident investigations. It would also provide protection from retaliation for reporting violent incidents
- Protecting public sector health care and social service workers in the 24 states not covered by OSHA protections
U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Representative Joe Courtney (D-CT) introduced this bipartisan, bicameral legislation to protect employees and reduce workplace violence in healthcare. “Our health care and social service workers deserve to work in a safe environment free from violence,” said Senator Baldwin. “It is unacceptable that our healthcare workers are subjected to senseless acts of violence in their workplace, and we must do more to protect them. I am proud to introduce this legislation to give our nurses, doctors, health care support staff, and social service professionals with long-overdue basic protections, helping address our health care workforce shortage and keep our frontline heroes safe.”
State Legislation
Many states have enacted workplace violence prevention laws specifically for healthcare employers. They include:
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Illinois
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- Oregon
- Rhode Island
- Texas
- Washington
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has also taken steps to develop a workplace violence prevention standard to better protect healthcare employees.
Texas SB 240
The Texas Senate passed SB 240 in May 2023, and Texas healthcare facilities must comply with its requirements by September 1, 2024. The bill requires healthcare facilities to adopt, implement, and enforce a written workplace violence prevention plan to protect healthcare providers and employees from violent behavior and threats of violent behavior at the following facilities:
- Licensed hospitals
- Hospitals operated by Texas state agencies are exempt from licensing
- Licensed nursing facilities that employ at least two registered nurses
- Home and community support services agencies that employ at least two registered nurses and are licensed or licensed and certified
- Licensed ambulatory surgical centers
- Freestanding emergency medical care facilities
- Licensed psychiatric hospitals
The bill aims to mitigate violence in healthcare by requiring “healthcare providers and employees to report incidents of workplace violence” at their facilities. The Texas SB240 requirements include:
- Facilities must “adopt, implement, and enforce a written workplace violence prevention plan…to protect health care providers and employees from violent behavior and threats of violent behavior occurring at the facility.”
- Facilities must “prescribe a system for responding to and investigating violent incidents or potentially violent incidents at the facility.”
- Healthcare providers and employees must “report incidents of workplace violence through the facility’s existing occurrence reporting systems.”
CENTEGIX is a nationwide innovator and leader in safety for healthcare organizations. CENTEGIX CrisisAlert delivers:
- Total facility coverage. Our self-contained, self-healing Bluetooth network secures every square foot of your property, extending support to your employees from patient rooms to areas like ambulance bays and parking structures.
- One-button activation. Staff can quickly and discreetly request help with the simple push of a button on the wearable duress badge, easily executing safety training during a crisis.
- Precise location accuracy. Our platform delivers precise floor and room-level location information, ensuring responders know exactly where to go.
- Robust dashboard reporting. The CENTEGIX Dashboard equips leaders with actionable data to understand how to best support their teams and facilities.
CENTEGIX CrisisAlert: Helping Healthcare Facilities Achieve Compliance
Addressing violence in healthcare in conjunction with evaluating safety technology can be stressful—but it doesn’t have to be. CENTEGIX is mission-driven to provide hospitals with tools to keep their employees safe.
The CENTEGIX Safety Platform™ is an advanced hospital safety solution designed to create a culture centered around safety, improving retention, and reducing turnover. The CENTEGIX Safety Platform offers precise location capabilities to ensure an accelerated and effective response during moments of need.
The Safety Platform at a glance:
- Discreet, one-button wearable duress badge
- Digital mapping to outline floorplans, safety assets, and incident locations
- Total campus coverage through a private Bluetooth network
- Precise locating capabilities activated only during an incident
- Easy installation with no hardwiring required
- Accessible and automatic reporting collected within an easy-to-use dashboard
- OSHA, CMS, and JC compliant
CENTEGIX Safety Platform offers a multi-pronged solution to enhance safety in your facility. The CENTEGIX Safety Platform can secure every square foot of hospital property, including those without Wi-Fi and cellular dead zones.
The CENTEGIX CrisisAlert wearable duress button provides an easy, discreet way for staff to request help. With precise location accuracy, responders know exactly where to dispatch help. CENTEGIX CrisisAlert delivers 100 percent full-campus coverage for your staff.
CENTEGIX Safety Blueprint™ provides hospitals with digital, multi-layered maps of their campuses—including information about safety assets—which is invaluable for staff and first responders in high-stress emergencies. CENTEGIX Safety Blueprint is highly customizable, so hospitals have a solution tailored to their needs.
CENTEGIX Visitor Management enhances administrators’ supervision of hospital traffic. Enhanced Visitor Management is capable of locating all guests, volunteers, and contractors in real-time through live digital maps. It also records visitor details for future reference.
The uptick in workplace violence in healthcare means every second matters. Set your healthcare organization up for success by partnering with CENTEGIX. CENTEGIX is an industry leader in wearable safety technology, with over 600,000 badges in use. Leaders in over 12,000 locations nationwide trust CENTEGIX’s innovative safety solutions to empower and protect their people every day.
Click here to see how CENTEGIX can enhance workplace safety in your healthcare organization.
