Cal/OSHA Proposes Workplace Violence Prevention Standards in Health Care
Violence in the Healthcare industry has risen to the point the-the government can no longer ignore what is happening. Workers in the healthcare industry are facing workplace violence at an alarming rate. The good news is that now because of OSHA, and Cal-Osha and a couple of health care unions something is getting done. You won’t want to miss the rest of this article.
Cal- OSHA is taking seriously the workplace violence that exists in the field of health care. California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health is making California the first state in the nation to recommend standards that are specifically aimed at keeping workplace violence away from health care workers.
Health care workers are more than three times as likely to experience workplace violence as any other private industry. This is according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
These statistics scream out for action to be taken those who work in the healthcare industry. These statistics also make it abundantly clear that there is a need for hospitals and other health care facilities to create and implement a health care workplace violence prevention program/plan.
A good place to start when considering workplace violence program or plan with be OSHA itself. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration provides both training materials as well as a guide to help prevent workplace violence. The problem is the plan has no teeth since there are no specific regulations in place that can be enforced.
As a result of the efforts of two health care worker unions through the use of petitions, along with ensuing advisory committee meetings that were facelifted by Cal-Osha, standards were passed in 2014 that did address Workplace Violence Prevention in Health Care. These new standards must be adopted by July 1, 2016.
In the planned standards, workplace violence “is defined as any act of violence or threat of violence that occurs at the work site,” including “the threat or use of physical force against an employee that results in, or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, psychological trauma,” or an “incident involving the threat or use of a firearm or other dangerous weapon.”
According to the proposed standards, the employee does not have to sustain an injury for the standards to be violated. The standard covers the following four types of violent encounters
- Someone with “no legitimate ”
- A current or past employee
- A person who is a beneficiary of the services provided at the facility.
- Someone who “has a personal relationship with an ”
The scope of the proposed regulations is very wide from Hospitals, Out Patient Medical Offices, Clinics, drug treatment programs as well as others.
The foundation of these proposed regulations address:
- Establishing a workplace violence prevention plan that includes active employee involvement;
- Detecting and evaluating environmental risk factors, like employees working in remote locations, poor lighting or obstructed visibility, lack of and escape routes, obstacles, and impediments to accessing alarm systems and storage of high-value items, currency or pharmaceuticals;
- Recognizing and evaluating patient-specific workplace violence risk factors by applying assessment tools, decision trees, or algorithms;
- Correcting hazards related to workplace violence in a timely manner and implementing corrective measures, such as: providing line of sight or other communication in all areas in which patients may be present; arranging spaces so that employees have admittance to doors and alarms; eliminating or fastening fixtures and other objects so they cannot be used as weapons; producing a security plan for prevention of the transport of unauthorized firearms and other weapons in the facility; maintaining sufficient staffing, and maintaining an alarm system;
- Providing specific training and education to all health care workers who provide direct care to patients at least annually;
- Setting up a system to respond to and investigate violent incidents and situations or the risk of violent incidents and situations;
- Assessing annually the program and making improvements to help prevent workplace violence; and
- Making and retaining records for five years of any violent incident against a hospital employee, regardless of whether an injury was sustained.
The proposed regulations also require that a covered health care facility report violent incidents to Cal/OSHA. If the incident results in injury, involves the use of a firearm or other dangerous weapon or presents an urgent or emergent threat to the welfare, health or safety of hospital personnel, the health care facility must report the incident to Cal/OSHA within 24 hours. All other incidents of violence must be reported to Cal/OSHA within 72 hours.