Hospital Employee Health 2014-05-01

States lead the way as HCWs push for violence prevention

In February, Evelyn Lynch, a 70-year-old nurse at Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn, NY, was removing a catheter from a patient when he suddenly knocked her to the ground and began beating and stomping on her.

ER nurses decry silence after violence

Reams of surveys have documented the frequency of verbal and physical assaults in the nations emergency rooms.

Community meetings: A strategy that works

The risk of violence simmers in behavioral health units across the country but it is possible to defuse that tension and prevent incidents through frequent community meetings between staff and patients.

Psych meds increase with workplace violence

After hospital workers encounter workplace violence, their medication use goes up, but there is no change in their visits to mental health counselors, according to a new study. Instead, they may be receiving much-needed emotional support from employee assistance programs.

HCW pertussis vaccination lags

For the past 10 years, the United States has been wrestling with a resurgence of pertussis as outbreaks strike in different states. In 2013, cases subsided in most of Minnesota, but spiked in Texas and North Carolina, for example. California reported 2,372 cases, 132 hospitalizations and one death of a two-month-old.

Motivators and barriers to influenza shots

A large Canadian study of 3,275 health care workers found that the decision to receive the vaccine for seasonal or pandemic (H1N1) influenza was most influenced by their concern for their own health.

Study highlights these chief vaccine motivators & barriers

Canadian researchers found a variety of key motivators and barriers to health care workers becoming vaccinated to prevent seasonal or pandemic influenza.

Nurses at high risk of work-family conflict

Nurses are at high risk of stress caused by work-family conflict (WFC) partly because of the physical and emotional demands of their long shifts. One solution could be to permit some worker self-scheduling, an expert says.

Self-scheduling may reduce worker stress

There is no magic template for initiating a self-scheduling practice, but there are some strategies hospital employee health departments could employ that will help reduce health care workers work-family conflict (WFC) stress.

Hospital Employee Health – May 1, 2014

May 1, 2014