BRISTOL, Conn.— Officials from Bristol Hospital and Health Care Group say that assaults on their staff and caregivers have decreased from a year ago thanks to numerous best practices in place.
Bristol Hospital hosted a news conference on Friday, June 8, in recognition of the American Hospital Association’s Hospitals Against Violence Day (#HAVhope Friday). The event included speakers from the hospital, the Bristol Police Department, the Connecticut Hospital Association and the AHA. A main goal of the event was to examine the steps currently underway to address hospital workplace violence on the local, state and national levels.
“This is a national day of awareness that unites hospitals, health systems, nurses, doctors and other professionals from across the country in an effort to combat workplace violence in the health care setting,” said Kurt A. Barwis, FACHE, president and CEO of Bristol Hospital and Health Care Group, Inc. “Let me stress one thing: Bristol Hospital is committed to providing safe and quality care to our patients and families. But assaulting our staff will not be tolerated.”
Michelle Miranda, MSN, RN, NE-BC, RN-B, the hospital’s director of inpatient services and Jennifer Foss, MSN, NEA-BC, RN-BC , director of nursing operations, presented some of these best practices which have resulted in about a 50 percent decrease in assaults on nurses, doctors, patient care associates and other clinicians.
But one incident is one too many they said. The majority of the incidents take place in the hospital’s emergency department although assaults often occur on the hospital’s inpatient medical/surgical floors, the inpatient behavioral health unit and the intensive care unit, as well.
“On the inpatient floors, all the staff has been offered training from our staff who have been certified as trainers in the Crisis Prevention Institute methods of de-escalation and we have increased the communication of these incidents during all our change of shift safety huddles,” Miranda said. “We also plan on implementing a violent patient alert in the patients’ electronic medical record.”
Foss said the majority of the violent incidents occur in the hospital’s emergency department which averages more than a 100 patient visits a day. The majority of these incidents take place between 5 pm and 1:30 am, and often include punching, spitting, pushing and aggressive verbal abuse of the staff there.
“We have put numerous security enhancements in place including increased signage, having a security officer in the emergency department during these hours, installing a department panic alarm system and having the unit only accessible via employee badge access,” Foss said. “‘We also encourage our staff to report all incidents so that they can be tracked and trended and the information is used to help us identify where we need to focus our resources. Most importantly, we need to know who was assaulted so that we can support them and give them the care that they deserve. ”
Foss added that whenever police assistance is needed and an arrest has been made, hospital employees are fully compensated for any court or legal proceedings.
Friday’s news conference also included presentations from the AHA, the Bristol Police Department, and the Connecticut Hospital Association. CHA officials discussed their Safer Hospitals Initiative, which has a goal of integrating worker safety into all hospitals’ overall safety programs.
Kurt A. Barwis, also surprised Bristol Police Chief Brian Gould with a Hospital Champion Award which was presented to the Bristol Police Department for their support of the hospital’s employees, physicians, volunteers, patients and families.