Nearly all hospitals specify a patient's right to receive care free of sexual harassment, but few include a zero tolerance policy of harassment toward healthcare workers in the patients' responsibilities, according to a research letter published in JAMA Network Open.
The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine recommends that hospitals maintain a clearly written patient bill of rights and responsibilities communicating a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment toward healthcare professionals. Researchers examined the degree to which 50 hospitals affiliated with the Association of American Medical Colleges complied with NASEM recommendations between February and October 2019.
If the patient bill of responsibilities used the words harassment, abuse or discrimination to specifically condemn behaviors (e.g. "harassment will not be tolerated"), it was coded as specific. Documents that didn't use these words but used positive behaviors to describe expectations (e.g. "be considerate") were coded as suggestive.
Six study findings:
1. All 50 hospitals maintained publicly available patient bills of rights.
2. Of the patient bills of rights, 94 percent (47) clearly stated that the patient has the right to a discrimination-free experience.
3. Only 22 percent (11) specifically addressed sexual abuse or harassment.
4. Of the 50 hospitals, 78 percent (39) had publicly available patient bills of responsibilities.
5. Of the 39 patient responsibility statements, only one (3 percent) used the word harassment, and none contained language against patient-perpetrated sexual harassment or abuse.
6. Language coded as suggestive (instead of specific) was used in 97 percent (38) of the patient responsibility statements.