Hospital survey identifies patients and visitors are the biggest threat to staff

Four out of every five acts of workplace violence inflicted on hospital personnel are committed by customers, clients, patients, students, inmates, and others for whom an organization provides services, a newly releases survey found.

Surveys like these help hospital systems to develop more robust security plans by being able to assess the likelihood, or risk, of types of crimes.

The details can be found in the impressive International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS) Foundation’s annual release of its Healthcare Crime Survey. The survey captures several types of crimes, providing hospitals with a look at what types of crimes others face, and whether they are crimes committed by employees or others.

For several years the organization has collected information on ten crimes, this year collecting answers from 269 hospitals about the 2020 calendar year. The survey collected bed counts for each hospital to allow the crime rate to be calculated per 100 beds. The survey also includes a comparison of crime rates annually, showing, for example, increases in 2020 in disorderly conduct, violent crime, simple assault, and vandalism. Reports on other crimes evidenced a decrease in frequency.

Overall, hospitals reported their most frequent offense as disorderly conduct clocking in 36.7 incidents per 100 beds. In descending order, disorderly incidents were followed by assault at 14.2, and theft, vandalism, and violent crime clocking in each at less than five. The lowest reported crimes involved burglary and motor vehicular theft, both counted less than one incident per 100 beds.

The full survey can be found here and includes information on:

• Murder

• Rape

• Robbery

• Aggravated Assault

• Simple Assault

• Burglary

• Theft

• Motor Vehicle Theft

• Vandalism

• Disorderly Conduct