New resource addresses ways to prevent hospital violence

As violence continues to evolve as a major public health and safety issue, health facilities professionals find themselves in urgent need of the most comprehensive information available to help prevent incidents and their effects on hospitals and the communities they serve.

Fortunately, many of the health care field's leading organizations are stepping up to provide the kind of help that goes beyond routine security advice to explore the complex challenges facing these health care organizations. The most recent and impressive of these is the Hospitals Against Violence campaign and web page.

Assembled by a multidisciplinary team of professionals from throughout the American Hospital Association (AHA), the site leverages work conducted from organizations within the AHA as well as outside government agencies and health care organizations to offer a wide range of articles, audiovisual resources, toolkits and links on various aspects of health care-centered violence prevention.

The page's resources are divided into three key sections:

Workplace Preparedness. Likely of most interest to Health Facilities Management's (HFM’s) facility-based readers, this section provides links to articles, webinars, federal government resources, other national and state resources as well as an AHA Members in Action section that offers information about what member hospitals are doing to prevent violence within their facilities.

Community Awareness & Interventions. Generally geared to higher-level hospital administrators with policymaking positions, this section provides news items, think pieces, case histories and webinars showing hospitals how they can work within their communities to help break the cycle of violence.

Partnerships & Coalitions. Directed to the CEOs within HFM's readership, this section offers advice and resources to help health care organizations make connections with like-minded organizations within their communities and nationally to fight violence across multiple fronts.

I encourage all our readers — from those in the boiler rooms to those in the administrative offices — to check out this new resource.

Mike Hrickiewicz is editor of Health Facilities Management and can be reached at mhrickiewicz@aha.org.