Don’t bleed before you are wounded, and if you can avoid being wounded…

…so much the better!

Part of me is wondering what took them so long to get to this point in the conversation.

In their latest Quick Safety utterance, our friends in Chicago are advocating de-escalation as a “first-line response to potential violence and aggression in health care settings.”  I believe the last time we touched upon this general topic was back in the spring of 2017 and I was very much in agreement with the importance of “arming” frontline staff (point of care/point of service—it matters not) with a quiver of de-escalation techniques. As noted at the time, there are a lot of instances in which our customers are rather grumpier than not and being able to manage the grumpies early on in the “grumprocess” (see what I did there?!?) makes so much operational sense that it seems somewhat odd that we are still having this conversation. To that end, I think I’m going to have to start gathering data as I wander the highways and byways of these United States and see how much emphasis is being placed on de-escalation skills as a function of everyday customer service. From orientation to periodic refreshers, this one is too important to keep ignoring, but maybe we’re not—you tell me!

At any rate, the latest Quick Safety offers up a whole slate of techniques and methods for preparing staff to deal with aggressive behaviors; there is mention of Sentinel Event Alert 57 regarding violence and health workers, so I think there is every reason to think that (much as ligature risks have taken center stage in the survey process) how well we prepare folks to proactively deal with aggressive behaviors could bubble up over the next little while. It is a certainty that the incidence rate in healthcare has caught the eyes and ears of OSHA (and they merit a mention in the Quick Safety as well as CDC and CMS), and I think that, in the industry overall, there are improvements to be made (recognizing that some of this is the result of others abdicating responsibility for behavioral health and other marginalized populations, but, as parents seem to indicate frequently, nobody ever said it would be fair…or equitable…or reasonable…). I personally think (and have for a very long time, pretty much since I had operational responsibilities for security) that de-escalation skills are vital in any service environment, but who has the time to make it happen?

Please weigh in if you have experiences (positive or negative are fine by me) that you’d feel like sharing—and you can absolutely request anonymity, just reach out to the Gmail account (stevemacsafetyspace@gmail.com) and I will remove any identifying marks…

About the Author: Steve MacArthur is a safety consultant with The Greeley Company in Danvers, Mass. He brings more than 30 years of healthcare management and consulting experience to his work with hospitals, physician offices, and ambulatory care facilities across the country. He is also a contributing editor for Healthcare Safety Leader. Contact Steve at stevemacsafetyspace@gmail.com.