SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Seventy-five percent of all reported incidents of workplace violence occur in healthcare or social service industries. Collective Medical, delivering the nation’s most effective network for care collaboration, today announced enhanced platform functionality to help providers nationwide record and manage incidents of workplace violence. Hospitals and other care settings using Collective can take greater control over the prevention of workplace violence by appropriately recording incidents and notifying other care teams in real time whenever a patient poses a potential security or safety risk.
A 2018 survey by the American College of Emergency Physicians showed that eight out of ten ED physicians report violence has harmed patient care, and of those, more than half report that other patients have been physically harmed. The same study reported 47 percent of ED physicians have been physically assaulted at work—more than 60 percent of which happened within the last year. Due to the fast-paced nature of the ED and the frequency of workplace violence in a healthcare setting, among other issues, these incidents are likely underreported.
Collective’s platform allows providers to document incidents of violence—including physical assault, verbal threats, theft, sexual assault, and self-harm—then flags and stores them for future reference. If a patient with a history of violence presents at another hospital or any point of care, Collective pushes a notification to hospital and security staff in real time, allowing them to respond appropriately to prevent another incident. In addition to supporting the prevention of workplace violence, the platform now also tracks other safety risks, like infectious disease.
“Care teams in the ED are, in many ways, the front line of healthcare,” says Mandira Singh, head of product at Collective Medical. “With nearly 50 percent of ED physicians reporting physical assault in the workplace, more needs to be done to help them address and prevent incidents of workplace violence.”
CHI St. Anthony in Pendleton, Oregon has used this functionality to increase workplace violence reporting rates by 20 percent—qualifying it for additional funding to establish an in-house security facility. On-site security increases workplace safety by reducing response times—in many cases preventing incidents—and develops a clear protocol if incidents do arise.
“For a year and a half, we’ve been working with the staff to encourage them to report these incidents,” says Steve Hardin, RN, BSN, ED and RT manager of CHI St. Anthony. “Once we began using Collective to document every violent incident, the hospital recognized the extent of the problem and provided us with additional resources to protect the staff and other patients.”
Chris Klomp, CEO of Collective Medical, adds “The medical community is realizing the extent to which violent incidents aren’t being reported; this prevents hospitals from fully preparing for future events and puts both patients and providers at risk. We’re pleased to work with our hospital partners and leading voices like ACEP to give medical staff a way to collaborate in order to help protect one another.”
Learn more about how Collective helps keep hospital teams safe at https://collectivemedical.com/workplace-safety/
ABOUT COLLECTIVE MEDICAL
Collective Medical empowers care teams to improve patient outcomes by closing the communication gaps that undermine patient care. With a nationwide network engaged with every national health plan in the country, hundreds of hospitals and health systems and tens of thousands of providers, Collective’s system-agnostic platform is trusted by care teams to identify at-risk and complex patients and facilitate actionable collaboration to make better care decisions and improve outcomes. Based in Salt Lake City, Collective is proven to streamline transitions of care, improve coordination across diverse care teams, and reduce medically unnecessary hospital admissions. Learn more at www.collectivemedical.com and Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
