Hospitals Against Violence on a mission to improve safety in health care facilities

Acting on its commitment to help hospitals and health systems respond to the challenges posed by community violence, the American Hospital Association offers its members valuable online resources to address everything from risk assessment to emergency response best practices.

The Hospitals Against Violence web page is part of a larger AHA initiative under the same banner designed to help hospitals address violence and the impact it has on their communities and staff.

Among the continuously growing number of resources you can find on the Hospitals Against Violence web page are links to help your organization be fully prepared for incidents of violence, and aware of the impact of violence on hospitals and communities. In addition, you’ll find partner resources on everything from case studies of hospitals and communities that are confronting violence to articles on how some hospitals are engaging with community leaders to stop violence before it occurs.

“We encourage all parts of the AHA family — our members and AHA employees — to use these resources and provide us with additional information and examples of how our hospitals are working to help end violence at home, on the job or in their neighborhoods. We truly believe that by working together we can make a difference by curbing violence and helping to heal the trauma associated with it,” says Mindy Hatton, AHA senior vice president and general counsel.

For those charged with overseeing hospital security and facilities management, such resources as the Healthcare Facility Workplace Violence Risk Assessment Tool from the AHA’s American Society for Healthcare Risk Management offer practical guidance. Elsewhere on the site, you’ll find Guiding Principles for Mitigating Violence in the Workplace, a resource created jointly by the American Organization of Nurse Executives and the Emergency Nurses Association. This document provides guiding principles and priorities to systematically reduce lateral as well as patient and family violence in the workplace.

As we saw in Health Facilities Management’s 2016 Hospital Security Survey, conducted jointly with the American Society for Healthcare Engineering, three out of four responding hospitals found it more challenging over the past two years to maintain security in facilities. Meanwhile, more than half of respondents reported an increase over the past 12 months in patient or family violence against staff in the emergency department.

With violence having a large and seemingly ever-growing impact on hospitals, it can be difficult for organizations to find all the financial, staffing and other resources needed to fully address this issue. The Hospitals Against Violence web page offers a valuable place to turn to help your organization continue to make a positive difference in these challenging times.