All California Hospitals Must Create Workplace Violence Prevention Plans

Defined by OSHA as “any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site,” workplace violence affects 2 million Americans every year, everyone from employees, clients, and customers to workplace visitors.

Workplace violence, unfortunately, is on the rise, and as of April 1, 2018, all California acute-care and skilled-nursing facilities are required to have comprehensive workplace violence prevention plans in place. The mandate was strongly supported by the California Nurses Association, and it’s not hard to see why. 20% of nurses and nursing students in the U.S. have been physically assaulted on the job. That’s roughly 650,000 assaults a year.

The mandate requires hospitals to identify areas and situations in which employees may be endangered at work, assess security systems, and review areas of high security risk, such as exit and entrance areas used by late-night and early-morning employees. The law also requires hospitals to monitor parking lot safety. All hospital employees will be required to undergo safety training on an annual basis, and the hospital must make available to them resources for coping with violence. Since 2017, healthcare facilities have been required to maintain a log of instances of workplace violence.

Concerns Regarding New Workplace Violence Regulations

The California Hospital Association, while supportive of the 2014 law (which only became fully effective 4/1/18), is also concerned about hospitals’ ability to comply with the regulations, citing ambiguous language in the law itself. Hospitals working to comply are for the time being advised to seek counsel.  

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