A growing problem exists in hospitals, clinics, and other medical facilities nationwide. Healthcare professionals face threats of violence from patients, family members, visitors, and co-workers. This adds another level of stress to an already demanding job and emphasizes the need for proactive workplace violence prevention measures.

Medical professionals are five times more likely to experience violence than employees in other industries. The most common victims are nurses and physicians working in high-stress environments such as hospitals and emergency rooms. But the problem isn’t constrained to hospital settings. It happens in doctors’ offices, maternity units, and long-term care facilities.

It’s time for healthcare organizations to elevate their safety plans by implementing technology that gives staff the upper hand against violence.

Alert Systems: Speeding Emergency Response

Healthcare professionals often find themselves in vulnerable situations that have the potential to escalate quickly. Examples include patients who exhibit illness-related agitation or family members who lash out at healthcare workers.

Every second matters when violence breaks out in a healthcare facility. The longer it takes staff, security personnel, or law enforcement to respond to an incident, the higher the chance of injury. Alert systems are crucial for cutting down response times and getting healthcare professionals the help they need.

To increase response times, hospitals and clinics use panic alert systems. This technology involves a wearable duress button that lets employees send a silent alert at the first sign of violence. Pushing a button is all it takes to alert specific staff members, security personnel, or the entire facility to an emergency.

Wearable duress buttons are invaluable when healthcare professionals are alone with a patient or family member. By discreetly initiating an alert, the employee in need gets the support required to de-escalate the situation before it becomes violent.

Other benefits of wearable duress buttons include:

• Avoiding unnecessary panic, fear, or disorder that’s likely to occur if an employee calls for help
• The ability to send alerts from exterior locations such as parking lots and walkways
• Initiating fast response when a patient or visitor has a sudden medical emergency
• Triggering a facility lockdown in the event of a natural disaster or active shooter incident
• Reliable functionality that doesn’t depend on a Wi-Fi signal

Panic alert systems provide peace of mind to healthcare professionals. They give employees the confidence they need to handle tense situations––knowing that help is seconds away. This creates a culture of safety where healthcare professionals can perform their jobs to the best of their abilities.

Digital Mapping: Elevating Safety Plans and Critical Response

Medical facilities are typically large buildings with vulnerable areas such as private rooms, hallways, stairwells, and elevators. Many hospitals and medical complexes include multiple buildings on expansive campuses. Developing effective safety plans in these environments is impossible without technology.

Digital mapping tools create a blueprint of an entire facility, enabling healthcare organizations to make informed decisions about safety protocols. This innovative technology tracks safety assets such as emergency exits, fire extinguishers, and medical equipment. Employees have access to the digital blueprint so they know exactly how to respond in the event of an emergency.

A detailed overview of the facility makes it easier for hospitals and clinics to rethink layouts and safety plans. For example, if hospital administrators discover that certain areas are often overcrowded, they can reconfigure the operational layout of the area, ensuring exits don’t become blocked in an emergency.

Digital mapping technology also supports faster response to workplace violence in hospitals and clinics. By integrating with wearable duress buttons, digital maps enable administrators, security personnel, and first responders to pinpoint the precise location of an emergency. This is invaluable during active shooter incidents or instances of an unwanted visitor on the premises.

Visitor Management Technology: Making Facility Monitoring Easy

Unauthorized visitors pose a serious threat to the safety of healthcare professionals and patients. The accessibility of hospitals, clinics, and other medical facilities makes it easy for individuals to enter the building, even if they don’t have a valid reason to be there. This is why criminals are often able to commit robberies, assaults, and shootings in medical environments.

Visitor management technology helps facilities combat this problem. These innovative tools provide access control, digital check-in functionality, and real-time visitor monitoring. This keeps unauthorized individuals out and ensures authorized visitors don’t access areas where they don’t belong.

Here’s a look at visitor management technology in action:

• Guests check in at the front desk and receive a visitor badge.
• An automated system controls which areas they can access.
• If a guest tries to access a ward they’re not authorized to enter, the door won’t open.
• Staff can monitor the exact location of the guest.
• If the guest enters an unauthorized area, staff can alert security personnel and other employees.

Many visitor badges allow staff to set expiration times, which is useful for limiting a contractor’s access to the premises while performing work. It also stops guests from remaining in the facility after visiting hours. Staff receive a notification when a badge expires.

In addition to access control and monitoring, visitor management technology helps hospitals and clinics account for all guests in the event of a lockdown or evacuation. If a visitor is still in the facility during an emergency, first responders can pinpoint their exact location.

Data Insights: Safety Compliance and Violence Prevention

Federal and state healthcare legislation creates laws that mandate healthcare facilities meet specific safety standards. Many of these laws require prevention plans and safety technology aimed at reducing workplace violence, improving response times, and mandatory incident reporting.

The good news is that some technology used to prevent violence also offers data collection functionality. This helps healthcare organizations log incidents, spot trends, and create safety plans for workplace violence prevention.

• Panic Alert Technology: Wearable duress badges log each usage, showing the types of alerts activated within a given period. This helps spot safety vulnerabilities so an organization can better support its healthcare professionals. Many panic alert systems also provide reporting capabilities.
• Digital Mapping Technology: Knowing where the highest concentration of incidents occurs is crucial when developing safety plans. Digital mapping tools track every instance of workplace violence so healthcare organizations know which areas and employees are at higher risk. Security personnel can use this information to rethink their safety protocols and implement new systems.
• Visitor Management Technology: Access to visitor information is helpful when investigating an incident. Visitor management tools do this and much more. This technology analyzes visitor trends, showing which locations in a facility get the most traffic and identifying busy periods. Organizations use this information to schedule security personnel and implement tighter safety protocols.

In addition to digital data collection, medical facilities should conduct staff surveys regarding safety plans and workplace violence prevention. Organizations should also have an incident reporting plan so employees can confidentially disclose instances of workplace violence.

Collecting and reporting safety data ensures compliance with state or federal safety regulations. Laws may also require staff to be trained on safety protocols and technology. Robust data collection helps a facility meet legal requirements and provides healthcare professionals with the skills needed to support workplace violence prevention and play an active role in creating a culture of safety.