A major East Coast health system is looking to clamp down on a recent uptick in harassment and violence against healthcare workers by canceling nonemergency care for those who violate its new “Patient Code of Conduct.”
Mass General Brigham (MGB) unveiled the new policy last week in an email notice to existing patients and an update to its online resources for patients and visitors. Physical copies of the policy will also be posted in MGB hospitals.
“Everyone should expect a safe, caring and inclusive environment in all our spaces,” the system wrote in the notices. “Our new Patient Code of Conduct helps us to meet this goal. Words or actions that are disrespectful, racist, discriminatory, hostile or harassing are not welcome.”
The notices outlined five specific examples of patient, family, visitor or research participant behaviors that will no longer be tolerated at its care locations:
- Offensive comments about others’ race, accent, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other personal traits
- Refusal to see a clinician or other staff member based on these personal traits
- Physical or verbal threats and assaults
- Sexual or vulgar words or actions
- Disrupting another patient’s care or experience
MGB said patients believed to have violated the code will have a chance to plead their case “before we make any decisions about future care at [MGB].”
These decisions could include “patients being asked” to find another provider for nonemergency care, “though we expect this to be rare,” the system said.
In an email statement, a representative of MGB said the new code was developed over the course of the past year and is similar to policies previously implemented across “several” of its hospitals.
The representative also said the policy was a direct response to a “national rise in violence and hostile behavior at healthcare facilities,” and pointed to a nationwide survey of nurses from the spring in which nearly half of respondents reported an increase in workplace violence.
“We recognize the threat of disrespectful, racist or discriminatory words and actions on members of our community,” MGB’s representative wrote in the statement. “Just as we have policies for our employees and clinicians to treat each other and every patient and visitor with courtesy and respect, this policy helps to define appropriate behaviors for patients, family members, visitors and research participants.”
Survey data released in September by the American College of Emergency Physicians outlined an increase in the number of ED workers who experienced or witnessed physical or verbal assaults. ECRI released an analysis of patient safety incidents a few weeks back that identified patients as the source of most racial events reported during care while Press Ganey estimated about 57 assaults against nurses occur daily across the country.
Not to be lost in the shuffle are a handful of high-profile attacks or other incidents that grabbed headlines in 2022, such as multiple-fatality shootings at Tulsa’s Saint Francis Hospital and Methodist Health System or campaigns of harassment targeting those working at children’s hospitals providing gender-related care.
Professional organizations such as the Association of American Medical Colleges and the National Academy of Medicine have called on hospitals and other healthcare employers to take more action safeguarding workers from such risks.
States including Wisconsin, Utah, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Michigan have introduced or are considering new laws that criminalize violence or threats against healthcare workers. Similar efforts at the federal level include the Workplace Violence Prevention Act for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act (passed in the House) and the Safety from Violence for Healthcare Employees Act (awaiting consideration by the House Judiciary Committee).