Hospital Employee Health
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Violence Continues to Threaten Hospital Workers and Patients
Hospitals and other healthcare facilities struggle daily with the threat of violence from patients and visitors, requiring more effort to identify potentially violent people and take steps to prevent injury.
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EDs Face OSHA Citations for Failing to Prevent Violence
OSHA cited a Texas hospital for failing to adequately protect employees from violence, after a patient assaulted a security officer who lost consciousness and was subsequently hospitalized. The agency noted the hospital had not created policies and procedures to protect employees from assault by patients who had exhibited violent behavior.
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Violence Continues to Threaten Hospital Workers and Patients
Violence in healthcare settings is an ongoing problem. Hospitals must create programs to prevent and track workplace violence. Staff should be trained in de-escalation and other tactics. A multidisciplinary threat assessment team should investigate concerns about potential violence. Data related to threats and violence should be carefully tracked.
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Establish Relationships with Law Enforcement to Improve Safety, Compliance
Hospital personnel often interact with law enforcement, sometimes resulting in stressful disputes. Establishing a cooperative relationship with police can prevent problems.
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Behavioral Treatment for Clinicians Now Protected with Rule Changes
Recent changes to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark Law provide protection to hospitals and health systems seeking to offer mental health, behavioral health improvement, or maintenance programs to physicians and other clinicians.
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Emergency Departments Inundated with Crowding, ‘Boarding,’ Violence
Amid an epidemic of violence, America’s EDs have become overwhelmed by long waits and “boarding,” a haphazard way station for the lost: psychiatric patients, walking wounded, those arriving by emergency transport, and those who deferred treatment during the pandemic, all awaiting an inpatient bed or a transfer. The American College of Emergency Physicians and many other co-signing medical groups described the problem in a letter to President Biden.
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COVID-19: CMS Ends Vaccine Mandate for HCWs
The end of the COVID-19 national Public Health Emergency brought a highly controversial issue to a relatively quiet hiatus: Healthcare workers are no longer federally mandated to receive the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has ended the requirement, which in any case did not apply to boosters or the bivalent vaccines.
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ID Doc: COVID-19 Can Be Controlled, Not Eradicated
Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH, is associate division chief of the HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at UCSF/San Francisco General Hospital. She has followed the COVID-19 pandemic closely. Hospital Employee Health sought Gandhi’s thoughts on the end of the Public Health Emergency.
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AOHP Researchers Track Down Needlestick Hazards
Following an alert from an occupational health manager at a U.S. hospital, researchers with the Association of Occupational Health Professionals in Healthcare found a longstanding sharps injury problem with prefilled syringes that were designed as safety devices.
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CDC Director Rochelle Walensky Exits
After conceding the CDC made mistakes and errors in the pandemic response — then launching an ambitious effort to reinvent the agency — director Rochelle Walensky, MD, has announced she will resign at the end of June 2023.