In the Know: Workforce Violence Survey

Healthcare has always had a focus on safety, whether to protect against infection, occupational injury, or attacks against staff. Unfortunately, it is the last item — violence against healthcare workers that needs our focus. According to data from the Joint Commission, a U.S. healthcare accreditation organization, workers in healthcare settings are four times more likely to be assaulted than workers in private industry and during the COVID-19 pandemic, studies reported an increase in violence and verbal abuse from primarily patients and their family members.

To better inform healthcare prevention and mitigation strategies, Premier together with input from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has created a survey to capture insights that can provide actionable data around workplace violence.

This survey will look at the specific characteristics of potential victims and perpetrators of workplace violence ranging from the department where the violence occurred to the age, race and sexual orientation of both victims and perpetrators involved in the incident. In addition, it will help healthcare teams better understand and quantify the reporting to and reaction of law enforcement when workplace violence occurs.

Having clearer insights into the specific characteristics and the details surrounding the response of law enforcement will aid in training and education as well as help identify potential risk factors for early mitigation.

This brief survey is intended to capture incidents of workforce violence that have occurred in healthcare settings across the nation. The resulting data will be shared with the public, policy makers, AHRQ and nurse organizations to help inform decision-making regarding workforce violence incidents and legislation designed to criminalize perpetrators of violence in healthcare settings.

We encourage all individuals working in a healthcare setting from clinical care to administrative roles to complete the survey. This survey should take approximately 5 minutes to complete. You can preview the questions that are in the survey here. Please complete the survey by 5PM EST on Friday, March 17, 2023.

Take the survey.