Workplace violence is front and center in healthcare, with clinicians increasingly saying the issue has led them to change or leave a job. As hospitals look to establish and strengthen a culture of safety, some have invested heavily into weapons detection systems.
Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine — which includes the University of Pennsylvania Health System — has put more than $28 million toward the installment of weapons detection systems across entrances to its hospitals and outpatient facilities. The investment is part of the system's larger strategy to prevent incidents of workplace violence, Kevin Mahoney, CEO of UPHS, and James Ballinghoff, DNP, RN, chief nursing executive of the system and chief nursing officer of Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, wrote in a February commentary published in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.
In the same month, Greensboro, N.C.-based Cone Health said it invested in a weapons detection system as part of a $3 million package to improve security in its emergency department and to entrances at various hospitals.
Hospital leaders have underscored that addressing workplace violence commands a multipronged approach, and weapons detections systems are just one component to their strategy, albeit an important one and among the more costly efforts. In addition to weapons screening, many hospitals have increased investments in de-escalation training for staff, provided employees with duress buttons and adopted patient codes of conduct.
Becker's recently examined trends related to weapons detection systems as hospitals ramp up spending on this measure.
What the data shows
Survey data and results from health systems that have widely adopted enhanced weapons screening stand in contrast to a longstanding sentiment in healthcare that certain visible security measures such as metal detectors could hinder the welcoming and friendly environment hospitals aim to create.
"We have seen no problems at all," Chris Comer, director of security and emergency management at Cone Health, said in a February news release. "Most people walk through them without giving it a second thought. And when we do detect something, they have been very good about putting the items in their car."
Meanwhile, survey results dating to 1997 indicate visible security measures such as metal detectors make most people — including hospital patrons and employees — feel safer. In a survey of 176 patrons and 95 employees, fewer than 1% of patrons said they were less likely to return to a hospital ED because of a metal detector, while nearly 39% said it would make them more likely to return. More recently, a study published in 2021 found hospitals with metal detectors were more than five times as likely to confiscate weapons. The research was based on a survey of security directors at U.S. hospitals, with researchers concluding the intervention "is effective."
In 2023 alone, Cleveland Clinic confiscated 30,000 weapons from patients and visitors — more than four times the amount the Transportation Security Administration confiscated at airport security checkpoints in the same time frame, the health system's president and CEO Tomislav Mihaljevic, MD, said during the system's annual State of the Clinic address in January. Cleveland Clinic has a six-point workplace safety plan in place that, outside of weapons screening, involves police presence in every emergency department and updated panic alarms.
Calls from healthcare workers for federal action to be taken on workplace violence have also escalated in recent months. On March 22, the presidents of the American Nurses Association, American College of Emergency Physicians and Emergency Nurses Associations urged lawmakers to pass two bills aimed at strengthening safety protections for workers in the industry — where the rate of serious injuries tied to workplace violence is six times higher compared to all other private sector employees in the U.S.