Within the past few weeks, three shootings in healthcare settings made national headlines.
In late December 2014, a man walked into the critical care unit of Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, N.H., in the early morning and shot and killed his wife before fatally shooting himself. Days later, a shooting at a Veterans Affairs clinic in El Paso, Texas, left a psychologist and the gunman dead.
And more recently, the cardiovascular surgeon who was shot by the relative of a former hospital patient shortly after 11 a.m. on Jan. 20 at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston has died.
The succession of these events in such a short period of time may lead some to wonder why more isn't being done to avoid such tragedies. But these events don't occur as frequently as it may seem right now, and steps to avoid such incidents are so potentially burdensome to hospitals that many aren't realistic.
It may sound harsh, but let's look at the facts.
A study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine identified roughly 154 hospital-related shootings in the United States between 2000 and 2011, roughly 59 percent of which actually occurred in the hospital as opposed to outside on its grounds.
The most common victim of these shootings? The perpetrator. Nearly half (45 percent) of the victims of hospital-related shootings were the perpetrators. Hospital employees comprised roughly 20 percent of victims, whereas nurse (5 percent) and physician (3 percent) victims were relatively infrequent, according to the study.
Ultimately, researchers found hospital-related shootings are relatively rare when compared with other forms of workplace violence such as assault and disorderly conduct. In fact, the likelihood of getting stuck by lighting is higher than the likelihood of being shot in a hospital.
In 2010, a patient's relative shot a physician at the John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore before locking himself in his mother's patient room and fatally shooting her and himself. Following the shooting, a Baltimore Sun report pointed out the hospital did not have metal detectors like so many airports, courthouses and federal buildings do.
Despite the hospital just having suffered a traumatic incident, Johns Hopkins officials argued that it would be impossible to impose such security restrictions on a weekly stream of roughly 80,000 patients and visitors and still remain welcoming to patients, according to the report.
That said, hospitals aren't entirely unprepared either. Many hospital employees — including those at Brigham and Women's Hospital — receive emergency preparedness training for incidents such as active shooters.
Ron Walls, MD, Brigham's executive vice president and chief operating officer, told The Boston Globe Brigham was one of the first hospitals in the country to train staff on how to respond to an "active shooter" situation, working with the Boston police.
Brigham President Elizabeth G. Nabel, MD, told The Boston Globe, "I am extremely proud of the way our staff responded."
The Advisory Board Company published a "How to survive a hospital shooting" training guide in May 2014 with information on how to react to the threat depending on proximity to the active shooter and how to provide care during an active shooter situation.
Healthcare workers do everything in their power to make sure people are safe and healthy, so hospital-related shootings present a difficult, albeit rare, challenge.
Having precautions in places that aren't overly costly or inconvenient and having a staff trained in emergency preparedness will, hopefully, never have to come in handy. But recent events in hospitals nationwide suggest these precautions should be considered by every hospital executive nonetheless.