ACEP has highlighted the growing issue of violence against emergency physicians and health care workers in its advocacy for several years, including in our ongoing "No Silence on ED Violence" campaign, and as one of our priority issues during the 2022 Leadership & Advocacy Conference in May.
ACEP has been working on targeted approaches to help address this ongoing problem. On the regulatory side, ACEP contributed to the development of The Joint Commission (TJC) workplace violence prevention requirements that became effective in January 2022. In addition, ACEP has been in touch with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) about the development of a workplace violence standard. Although that regulation was un delayed due to OSHA’s continued work developing a final COVID-19 safety standard, the regulatory process has finally started back up again. In March 2023, OSHA took one of the first steps of the regulatory process and convened a Small Business Advocacy Review (SBAR) Panel to provide initial input on the draft regulation. ACEP’s advocacy was successful in getting an emergency physician placed on this panel to ensure that the regulation appropriately captures the emergency medicine perspective.
ACEP also has participated in an Action Team sponsored by the National Quality Forum, which identified and proposed ways to overcome key barriers to appropriately responding to, reporting and preventing future violent incidents in health care settings.
On the legislative side, ACEP continues working on a two-pronged approach to address violence against physicians and other health care workers. ACEP helped inform and supported the “Workplace Violence Prevention Act for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act,” bipartisan legislation that directs OSHA to issue standards for employers to implement workplace violence prevention plans that would protect health care and social service workers from assaults. This legislation has twice passed the House of Representatives in bipartisan votes, but to date has not been taken up for consideration in the Senate. We also helped develop and secure co-sponsors for the bipartisan “Safety from Violence for Healthcare Employees (SAVE) Act,” first introduced in the House of Representatives in June 2022. This legislation takes critical steps to address ED violence by establishing legal penalties for individuals who knowingly and intentionally assault or intimidate health care workers, and also creates grants to help hospitals and medical facilities establish and improve workplace safety, security, and violence prevention efforts. It is modeled after protections that currently exist for aircraft and airport workers, such as flight crews and attendants, whose exposure to violence and assault from unruly passengers has been extensively and publicly documented in recent years.
ACEP and the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) held a joint press event with Sen. Baldwin on Capitol Hill to speak out against attacks on emergency health care workers and called on Congress to pass the workplace violence prevention legislation. ACEP speakers at the event were Aisha Terry, MD, MPH, FACEP, vice president of ACEP, and Jennifer Casaletto, MD, FACEP, president of the North Carolina College of Emergency Physicians. Watch the Facebook Live recording of the press event.
