GAO focuses on violence in healthcare settings

A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report recommends actions to address violence directed at the healthcare workers, according to an article the Occupational Health & Safety website.

"Additional Efforts Needed to Help Protect Health Care Workers from Workplace Violence" report describes violence as a serious concern for 15 million health workers in the United States.

The report assesses OSHA's actions, which include inspections of healthcare workplaces, designating a workplace violence coordinator in each regional office, disseminating voluntary guidelines about preventing workplace violence, and adding workplace violence material to the training given to new OSHA inspection personnel. 

OSHA has not developed a workplace violence prevention standard, and the report says OSHA officials indicated they are not planning one because other hazards have a higher priority for regulatory action.

"It is clear to me that OSHA should move forward and develop an enforceable violence prevention standard to help protect our nation's health care workers. Injuries requiring days away from work are financially and emotionally costly for both employers and workers, and these avoidable injuries put pressure on working families to do more with less." the report said.

Read the article.