Recent shootings and other attacks in healthcare settings have called attention to violence in the industry.
One such shooting occurred July 22 at Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland, Ore.
Police shot PoniaX Kane Calles, 33, after he allegedly shot a security guard at the hospital, identified as Bobby Smallwood, 44, who died after being transferred to another facility. A second hospital employee was injured, treated at Good Samaritan and released to go home July 22. Officers located Mr. Calles in a vehicle in Gresham, Ore., where he died after an officer-involved shooting, police said. No officers were injured.
In another shooting, a physician was injured July 25 by a gunman who fired inside of Cedar Hill, Texas-based Methodist Family Health Center. And a man was charged last month in connection with the shooting and death of an orthopedic surgeon at Campbell Clinic Orthopaedics in Collierville, Tenn. Police allege that Larry Pickens, 29, of Memphis, Tenn., shot and killed Benjamin Mauck, MD, in an exam room on July 11.
Such gun violence, which also includes a 2022 shooting inside a medical office building on the Saint Francis Health System campus in Tulsa, Okla., have helped contribute to rising violence in healthcare.
There have been attacks outside of gun violence as well. An April 2020 Bureau of Labor Statistics fact sheet found that healthcare workers accounted for 73 percent of all nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses due to violence in 2018. This number has been steadily growing since 2011, the first year for tracking of these specific events.
Hospitals, health systems and states have worked to address the issue. Portland, Ore.-based Legacy Health is increasing security at its hospitals after the fatal shooting at Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital. These efforts include installing metal detectors with bag search at every system hospital, and installing bullet-slow film on hospital main entrances and emergency departments and on glass in internal entrances. Hospitals in Tennessee also adopted additional security measures after the shooting at Campbell Clinic Orthopaedics.
Overall, about 40 states have laws that establish or enhance penalties for assaults on healthcare workers, according to the American Nurses Association. KFF Health News reported in May that lawmakers in various states had also approved or were working on laws that allow hospitals to establish campus police forces. Groups representing nurses and hospitals point to benefits of such laws, while critics warn against pitfalls of establishing hospital police forces.