Becker's Hospital Review

80 CMO / CARE DELIVERY 'It's not part of the job': How MUSC is combating workplace violence By Mackenzie Bean H ealthcare workers experience serious workplace violence incidents four times more oen than employees in the private sector, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor. In fact, workplace violence is so common in healthcare, it's oen ingrained in clinical cul- ture, according to Valarie Bell Wright, an orga- nizational change management and commu- nication consultant at Charleston, S.C.-based MUSC Health. "It's so prevalent that clinical staff think it's just part of the everyday job," she told Beck- er's in a phone interview. "We're trying to change that perception at MUSC." Ms. Wright also serves as the communication lead for MUSC's Workplace Violence Commit- tee, which is rolling out new workplace violence initiatives in partnership with the South Caro- lina Hospital Association's Hospital Safe Zones campaign and Solutions for Patient Safety. rough the new initiatives, MUSC Health aims to boost staff awareness that workplace violence should not be tolerated; reduce workplace vio- lence incidents; and encourage staff members to report incidents when they do occur. A push for more reporting To increase staff awareness and encourage reporting, committee members first visited meetings with administrators, directors and managers to introduce the new workplace vi- olence initiatives. "We asked leaders to cascade this message throughout the organization," said Ms. Wright. e committee then turned to digital forms of communication to encourage staff members to report workplace violence incidents or unsafe conditions. Information on reporting was included in the hospital's internal news- paper, weekly emails from MUSC Health CEO Patrick Cawley, MD, and daily safety updates from Danielle Bowen Scheurer, MD, the hospital's chief quality officer. e committee also created workplace vio- lence awareness posters to hang in MUSC facilities. One poster features Dr. Cawley with the words, "You report. We support." Anoth- er depicts April Roscoe, manager of MUSC Health's safe patient handling and mobility program, and says, "It's not part of the job." Ms. Wright noted MUSC Health is unique in that the hospital has a full-time security team and law enforcement division certified by the state. MUSC employees can report workplace safety incidents through either of these enti- ties, or through an online page on the hospi- tal's employee portal. Preventing future incidents Last year, MUSC Health recorded 133 work- place violence incidents, 99 of which involved altercations between patients and employees. To teach staff members strategies to defuse difficult situations with patients and family members, MUSC launched workplace vio- lence training workshops in April 2018. e committee recruited an outside crisis pre- vention expert to lead the training, which is open to all staff members working on a unit, according to Cynthia Cathcart, MSN, RN, a nursing professional development facilitator in the department of clinical education at MUSC who helped create the workshops. As part of the training, students from the Col- lege of Medicine act out workplace violence scenarios that actually occurred at the hospi- tal, and staff members must respond. "It's more than just giving them information," Ms. Cathcart said. "It's having them participate in the situation. ey seem to really enjoy that simulation and hands-on experience." MUSC Health holds the training sessions for individual units two to three times a month and is on track to train 750 staff members by the end of September. e hospital plans to increase sessions to once a week, with the goal of training more than 1,100 participants by the end of 2019. "We want to train the entire medical cen- ter, or as many people as will participate," said Ms. Cathcart. While the number of reported workplace vi- olence incidents at MUSC has gone up this year — likely due to the awareness campaign's big push for more reporting — Ms. Cathcart said she's already seen benefits from the train- ing workshops. One participant emailed her to say he faced a tense situation with a patient shortly aer taking the workshop. "He wanted to thank us for encouraging him to participate and said he was able to use ver- bal de-escalation in his interaction with the pa- tient," Ms. Cathcart said. "He said the technique worked and that he felt so good about having taken the class to better serve his patients." n UCHealth invests $100M into behavioral health By Mackenzie Bean U CHealth aims to improve behavioral health services in the state through a $100 million investment, the Aurora, Colo.-based health system announced Sept. 3. UCHealth said it would also match up to $25 million in donations, bringing the total potential investment to $150 million over five years. The investment will allow UCHealth to expand existing behavioral health ser- vices across the state while also rolling out new initiatives, which include: • Staffing teams of clinical social workers and psychologists in primary care offices • Offering telehealth consultations with a psychiatrist to patients in emergency departments, primary care clinics and hospitals • Constructing an inpatient behavioral health unit at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora At present, about 832,000 adults in Colorado have a mental health issue, and more than half are not receiving treatment, according to estimates from Mental Health America. n

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