On July 31, the American Hospital Association (AHA) and American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) hosted a Senate-side briefing highlighting the growing specter of violence in hospitals and how Congress can help protect health care workers. Congressional staff heard from Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) and frontline health care leaders.
The two associations are among the nearly 30 national organizations urging Congress to pass the Safety from Violence for Healthcare Employees (SAVE) Act (H.R. 2584/S. 2768), bipartisan legislation that would establish the first-ever federal protections against violence for health care workers, making it a federal crime to intentionally assault a health care worker and interfere with their ability to carry out their duties. The bills now have more than 120 cosponsors, and the briefing kicked off an August recess grassroots campaign to boost Congressional support for the legislation.
Nearly a decade ago, a Government Accountability Office study found that health care workers are five times more likely than any other profession to be victims of workplace violence. Since then, the frequency of these verbal and physical attacks has continued to escalate––damaging morale, contributing to trauma, stress, and burnout among health care providers, and affecting hospitals’ ability to recruit and retain employees.
The panelists—Mark Boucot, president and CEO of two WVU Medicine hospitals; Rachel Culpepper, general medicine service line director at Indiana University Health West Hospital; and James Phillips, chair of disaster medicine at the American College of Emergency Physicians––described their own experiences with workplace violence, including having blood thrown on them, being threatened and physically assaulted, and witnessing colleagues being attacked and even killed. Panelists also emphasized that federal legislation is needed despite the health care field’s best efforts to protect workers—through de-escalation training, coordination with local law enforcement, implementing physical improvements such as closed-circuit cameras and metal detectors, and more.
In addition to strengthening penalties against anyone who intentionally assaults a health care worker, the SAVE Act would also enable hospitals to boost their violence interruption and prevention programs to train hospital staff on how to deescalate a situation and defend themselves if needed.
Speaking to the standing-room-only crowd, Senator Manchin, the lead Senate sponsor of the SAVE Act, expressed optimism about the bill’s chances this year and directed this message to the panelists:
“I want to make sure that you live in a safe environment, you work in a safe environment, and you go to the comfort of your home knowing that you’re protected at work and providing for your families. The bill would not usurp any state laws on this issue, but instead, ‘we’re saying you have to have at least this minimum protection.’”
Speaking to the bill’s penalties, AHA counsel Chad Golder emphasized that the goal of the legislation is to provide a powerful deterrent to violence against health care workers. “We never want this law enforced – our goal is that there will be no violence in the first place.”
To read more about the SAVE Act, CLICK HERE.
To read a MedPage Today story highlighting the briefing, CLICK HERE.