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With the rising pattern of violence and other threats, hospital leaders should engage front-line staff for safer ED operations.
By Shelly Strom ENA CONNECTION CONTRIBUTOR
September, 2019
Emergency nurse Jessica Hall, BSN, RN, CEN, is helping drive a committee looking at ways of reconfiguring their emergency department for better flow, which means improving safety and security for staff, patients and families.
The work is happening against a backdrop of violence and other issues putting safety hazards on the rise for health care workers. The ED where Hall works, Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia, the region’s only Level I trauma center, is no different.
Hall and her fellow ED nurses treat gunshot wounds weekly, sometimes daily. Rival gangs have brawled in the ED waiting area. Hall and her colleagues often manage psych holds and multiple simultaneous alpha traumas during a single shift. And in May, following a mass shooting just 20 miles away at a Virginia Beach municipal building that left 11 people dead and six injured, the ED staff added dealing with the aftermath of a mass shooting on their list of acquired skills.
Like many EDs, the Norfolk General staff has experienced workplace violence. Hall sustained a broken arm and dislocated shoulder during an incident with a combative patient last winter that still hasn’t fully healed.
EDs around the country are faced with putting their staff in dangerous situations every day. ENA research suggests health care workers make up half of all workplace violence victims, which tracks considering health care workers are four times more likely to be assaulted than other U.S. workers.
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