The American Organization for Nursing Leadership and the Emergency Nurses Association on Oct. 25 updated their guidelines to mitigate workplace violence based on the latest research.
The organizations developed the Guiding Principles on Mitigating Workplace Violence for hospitals and health systems in 2015. The update includes a toolkit to support hospitals in customizing a violence prevention program, the organizations' nurse leaders said in an Oct. 25 blog post.
The AONL and ENA recommend hospitals and health systems use the following principles as a guide to expand workplace violence prevention efforts:
- Ground workplace violence prevention programs using evidence-based strategies.
- Employ comprehensive solutions, recognizing the intersecting layers of intrusive, consumer, relational and organizational violence
- Mitigate workplace violence by establishing support through the breadth of the organization.
- Promote a culture of safety to create a healthy work environment.
- Ensure interprofessional teams (leadership, staff, patients and visitors) are committed to reporting incidents of violence and acting to prevent workplace violence.
- Emphasize accountability, regardless of role or discipline, to uphold foundational standards of nonviolent behavior.
The updated guidance comes in the wake of a shooting at Methodist Dallas Medical Center on Oct. 22 that left two employees dead.