AS I SEE IT


not all involved weapons. The Occu- pational Safety and Health Adminis- tration (OSHA) indicates that the inci- dence rate for injuries from assault/ violent act ranges from 13–36 per 10,000 full-time health service work- ers compared to an overall private sec- tor injury rate of 3 per 10,000. Health care organizations frequently lack the appropriate controls and resources to prevent acts of aggres- sion and violent behavior. Typically, we are in the business of helping people and tolerate behaviors instead of man- age and address them. This happens for three reasons: 1) lack of awareness, i.e., the incidents happen but are not reported; 2) health care organizations focus on medical treatment and healing, so instead of training our employees to manage aggressive patients, we focus


The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) indicates that the incidence rate for injuries from assault/violent act ranges from 13–36 per 10,000 full-time health service workers compared to an overall private sector injury rate of 3 per 10,000.”


— Beth Chrismer, RN Good Shepherd Ambulatory Surgical Center


on medical competency; and 3) lack of resources to train staff on de-escalation and aggression management. I will discuss the corrective actions that we have put in place and strategies


for identifying potential threats and then de-escalating the situation. Nobody is immune to these random acts of violence, and we all need to be aware and recognize the potential risk, help our staff to be prepared, set up training for our staff, do drills, evaluate security measures and work with local resources, including law enforcement and Emergency Medical Services. I hope that no one ever experiences


an event of work place violence that changes their world, but if they do, I hope that they learn from our situation and can say that they were as prepared as possible.


Beth Chrismer, RN, is the director of medical care review at Good Shepherd Ambulatory Surgical Center in Longview, Texas. Write her at BChrismer@gsmc.org.


SAVE THE DATE 10 ASC FOCUS APRIL 2016


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