California (CA) has been known to be a trendsetter, especially when it come to rules, laws and regulations. What passes in CA is often assumed to begin to be passed in other states as well. What that said, let’s take a look at what’s been happening in CA in terms of healthcare workplace violence.
Increasing Safety – OSHA & CA Unions Joining Forces
In 2014 CA passed a law known as the Padilla Healthcare Workplace Violence Prevention Act which requires hospitals to establish a functioning workplace violence prevention plans. This, of course is all for the purpose of protecting all hospital staff. However, the law did not include certain health establishments and used verbiage that wasn’t quite as extensive as healthcare unions were hoping for. This led to a continued push for higher standards.
However, the law did include a provision that the CA Division of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA) “may expand on the scope of coverage and broaden the mandated workplace violence prevention plan.”
Eventually the law verbiage was adjusted as a result of Cal/OSHA’s acceptance of the alliance’s proposed language. The proposal contained several suggestions about how to more clearly address internal workplace violence, create guidelines for reporting instances of violence and spotting the risk factors before an incident occurs.
The new standards that Cal/OSHA approved solidified the necessity of a good Visitor Management System.
Such a system would include checking all visitors through two different databases. One being a list of previously banned visitors and another being a criminal background check. Another visitor management system implementation would be to have sign-in stations at all entrances instead of just at the main entry.
Being that all of these suggestions came from the workers who have seen workplace violence first hand, shows the importance and necessity of making these adjustments.