Once complete, the PSN report is sent to Risk Management and other relevant groups, such as a 5-person team of security investigators, who are trained in trauma-informed interviewing and re-directive techniques. This team can immediately speak to the patient face-to-face in the inpatient setting or follow-up via phone in the outpatient setting.
The PSN report may result in the creation of a behavior plan for the patient that outlines the behaviors of concern, staff interventions, and consequences for persistent violations. The behavior plan is saved in the patient’s medical chart, and an alert pops up every time the chart is opened. The behavior plan is reviewed once annually for revision or deletion, as appropriate.
Lessons from our facility’s policy
In our health care system, our primary response to HCW harassment is to create a patient behavior plan that lays out specific expectations, care parameters, and consequences (up to terminating a patient from the entire health care system, except for EMTALA-level care). Clinicians are encouraged to report harassment to hospital administration, and a team of security investigators discusses expectations with the patient and/or visitors to prevent further abuse. We believe that describing our policies may be helpful to other health care systems and HCWs who confront this widespread issue.