Prevention and Mitigation of Health Care Violence

Healthcare violence has been an issue in the midst of patient care in healthcare for decades.
It is the only aspect in healthcare that has not been fully addressed or prioritized on the
frontlines. Nurses experience violence at an alarming rate of 20% to 70%.This has resulted in
nursing staff burnout, job dissatisfaction, increased stress, and loss of retention of staff
ultimately leading to loss of quality of patient care. This course endeavors to change the culture
of health care violence by introducing and teaching a set of skills to not only mitigate but
ultimately prevent harm to frontline nurses.

Course Format

Didactic with case presentations/simulations and skills exercise

Prevention and Mitigation of Health Care Violence Course Syllabus/Outline

1. Introduction
2. Current State of Health Care Violence
   1. Epidemiology of Health Care Violence
   2. The Trend and Current State of Health Care Violence
   3. Health Violence and the Effects on nursing burnout and stress
      1. Effects on staff retention
3. “Walk Before Running” (Basics of Evasion Skills in setting of physically/Verbally aggressive
   patients)
   1. Skills exercise and didactic
   2. Case presentations
4. “The Box”: Maximizing Safety During Triage
   1. Skills exercise (case based)
   2. Situational Awareness of pt cues
5. “Need to get that IV In”: Dealing with violence in the midst of performing pt care
   1. Skills exercise with case presentation/simulation
   2. Deescalating healthcare violence with the entire healthcare team
6. “We Need to Talk”: Verbal de-escalation tactics
   1. Strategies to de escalate aggressive patients
   2. Applying assertiveness prior to escalation
   3. Strategies to patient recovery after violent incidents
   4. Crisis intervention
7. “I Want To Go Home”: Going to the car, leaving the shift
   1. Case based scenarios/skills
8. Debriefing After Incident
   1. Trauma Informed Care
      1. Trauma Understanding
      2. Safety & Security
      3. Cultural Humility & Responsiveness
      4. Compassion & Dependability
      5. Collaboration & Empowerment
      6. Resilience & Recovery