Reducing Patient to Staff Assaults on Medical Surgical Wards

Background: Workplace violence (WPV) is a serious and growing problem. Nurses have the highest risk for assault due to having more direct patient contact than any other healthcare (HC) workers (Ferri et al., 2016). In 2019, the Senate passed a bill requiring HC employers to implement a WPV prevention plan. Purpose: Implement a WPV prevention plan called the Golden Hand (GH) Tool Kit to reduce assaults on medical-surgical (MS) wards to include: • Staff education • Violence prediction assessment • Additional security for Behavioral Response Team (BRT) • Safety huddles Methods: Analyze the pre- and post-implementation staff survey results and the numbers of assaults from the Safety Intelligence (SI) system to evaluate the project's effectiveness. Results: Based on survey data n=267, staff were in favor of the project and found it beneficial. Reports from SI showed assaults decreased and the time between assaults increased on Ward A; however, no initial improvement on Ward B. In December, a process change was made on Ward B to increase the use of the violence prediction tool to all patients daily. During the 11 weeks of study that followed, there were no patient-to-staff assaults reported on Ward A or B. The project has shown the GH system has an overall positive effect on the reduction of WPV and has even more potential for success with more time and continuous improvements. Conclusion: The GH Tool Kit demonstrates an effective outcome in reducing patient-to-staff assaults in the MS setting in its post-implementation measurement.