HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY NEWS continued Hospital Access, Security is a Real Balancing Act


An incomplete Joint Commission count shows that violent incidents at U.S. hospitals in 2011 reached their highest level in at least 17 years. The Joint Commission, a national, nonprofit health-care accrediting agency, reviewed 49 homicides, assaults and rapes that occurred in hospitals last year but said that’s a fraction of the actual number because reporting of such incidents is voluntary. Like other public places, hospitals must strike a balance between giving visitors freedom while ensuring their safety and that of patients and employees. A recent survey found that local hospitals are, in general, putting more precautions in place. These precautions include installing metal detectors, requiring visitors to be on a list of approved guests before they have access to a patient, and using electronic systems in which visitors have a driver’s license or other photo identification scanned and incorpo- rated on a personalized badge. Additionally, hospital workers are at a considerably greater risk of assault in the workplace than in most other types of employment and therefore should be trained to recognize signs of potential violence.


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Scalpel-Throwing Surgeons Stun Anger Management Pioneer George Anderson positioned himself on a stool across the operating table so he could get a good angle on the surgeon’s face. He watched for signs of irritation as the doctor, known for temper tantrums, sewed a valve into a patient’s heart. Then the surgeon’s phone buzzed. The hospital earlier had called in Anderson, an anger management therapist, to help one of their top doctors -- now cursing into his headset -- control his bad temper. After the operation, the surgeon removed his latex gloves, threw them on the floor and left the operating room in silence.


A survey published in American Journal of Nursing in 2002, reported that 90% of hospital workers, including doctors and nurses, reported “yelling,” “abusive language” as well as “condescension” and “berating colleagues.” Twenty-five percent of the 1,200 people surveyed said they witnessed such behavior weekly.


Medical professionals present Anderson with unique challenges. Their hours are brutal, the stakes are high, and the threat of malpractice suits is ever-present. Verbal abuse is among the milder transgressions, according to Anderson. “Throwing instruments, like scalpels, is not unusual,” he said.


Courses meant for business people are often innocuously billed as “executive coaching” because of the corporate desire for anonymity -- a characteristic shared with the medical establishment. “Physicians are paranoid to have anyone knowing that they received psychotherapy,” Anderson says. The first thing Anderson tells doctors is that “high intelligence is no protection from stupid behavior. It cannot prevent the flubbing of jobs, marriages, or relationships.”


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