1. Violence in the Workplace
Amy Brown BSN, RN, NE-BC
Director for Med Surg Nursing
Amy: Hello everyone and thank you for being here for this discussion about violence in the workplace. My AIDET… There are a lot of Sparrow Leaders and Caregivers that are passionate about violence in the workplace and working together to create programs that address it and support caregivers that are involved with it. Some of them are here today and I will let them introduce themselves….Jerry, Mike, Tom, Malinda, Amy S, Linda….

2. Amy: As we all know the needs of the patient come first…today we are going to focus on the needs of the patients as well as the needs of the caregivers

3. Purpose for Discussion
Review statistics related to violence in the workplace
Define violence in the workplace
Explain the importance of reporting violence in the workplace
Describe Sparrow initiatives for increasing safety in the workplace.
(AMY)

4. Caregiver Story 5 minutes –
We know there are several of you out there that have similar stories. You are the reason why we are here today. You are the reason why Sparrow Leadership wants to ensure that we are doing what we can to make you feel a little safer and know that we care about you.
Some of the symptoms that victims report include emotional exhaustion, decreased levels of well-being, low self-esteem, depression, decreased job satisfaction, feelings of powerlessness and suicidal and homicidal tendencies (Kvas, 2015 p. 177). There is help. Sparrow Cares and Sparrow Strong. Both of those programs can be found on the intranet or by calling the operator.

5. Violence around the Country
In just one year, over two million people in America have experienced violence in the workplace (Richards, 2016).
Out of those two million people, almost sixty percent worked in a healthcare setting (Richards, 2016).
Healthcare professionals, specifically nurses, are considered high risk for being exposed to workplace violence and it is considered common for emergency room workers.
Many studies show that violence against emergency room nurses can span “between 42-67% over 6-12 months and even reach 72% over their career “(Renker, 2013, p. 6).
2 minutes - Violence in the workplace is a nation wide problem.

6. Definition of Violence
The Sparrow Hospital Workplace Violence Policy defines violence as:
Any verbal abuse, threatening behavior, harassment, physical assault or sexual assault occurring in the workplace. A workplace may be any location either permanent or temporary where a caregiver performs any work related duty.
5 minutes – after reading this definition there are many
The culture that exists within the unit may contribute to how violence is defined, also many healthcare workers feel it is part of their job.
Two different types of healthcare workers could have a different definition of violence. Also research has shown that a person’s own experiences will significantly affect their perception (Blando, 2013 p.492). In some instances this could make them more sensitive to workplace violence while others could lead to less sensitivity.
I believe verbal abuse is underreported here at Sparrow Hospital. I think this also leads to what is considered verbal abuse. If a patient, family or visitor is yelling at you, swearing at you or saying things that are not appropriate you have the obligation to ask that patient to stop and let them know this is not tolerated and we need to communicate to each other in a respectful manner. If their behavior doesn’t change, after you gave them the expectation you must complete a verbal abuse report. WE will go into more detail in just a little bit about why this is important.

7. Polling Question
How many of you have experienced physical violence in the workplace from patients?
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8. Polling Questions
How many of you have experienced physical violence in the workplace related to the patient’s family, friends or visitors?
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9. Polling Question
How many of you have experienced verbal violence in the workplace related to patients and or family, visitors and guests?
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10. Polling Question
For every incident of violence that you experienced, how many of you filled out a violent incident report?
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11. Data related to Violent Incident Reports
January 2016 – September 2016
Violent incidents by department St. Law and Main ed inpatients only

12. Data related to Violent Incidents ED January 2016-September 2016
From January to September there are 274 days…
On average Sparrow main sees about patients PER DAY….over 274 days that is roughly over 68,000 patients they have come in contact with
St. Law sees about …… patients
Yet for the data related to Violence in the Emergency Departments – where the research states is an area that is most affected…Sparrow Main reported 46 physical assaults, 18 threats of violence and 17 verbal abuse reported and at St. Lawrence ED only 25 reported physical assaults over 274 days

13. RL Risk Occurrence Reporting
WHY
Data gets Dollars
What can you do?
Complete occurrence report every time you experience violence in the workplace
Data gets Dollars – the Hospital is not going to invest resources into a problem we “think” we have. When the plan is made and a budget is built it will only be as good as the information (data) that we have to work. And as you can see from the previous slide our percentage of reporting is very poor.
Review Handout

14. Sparrow Initiatives for a Safe Environment
RL Solutions – data tracking
Lynx
History of Violence Flag
Epic
Door Magnets
Security Committee
Training MOAB/NCI
Jerry will speak about these topics

15. Your Opinion Matters
What ideas or suggestions do you have to create a safe environment at Sparrow Hospital?
Would anyone like to share?
Index card that you can share
or jerry.dumond.sparrow.org
As we have discussed and we have heard that violence in the workplace doesn't only effect Sparrow Hospital and we know we can’t completely get rid of violence but we want to know what are your ideas or suggestions related to violence in the workplace.
Would anyone like to share….
When you came in you had the opportunity to sign in and also take a couple of handout. One of those is

16. Thank you for attending.
By working together, we at Sparrow can make a difference to address violence in the workplace.