Mausz, J.; Piquette, D.; Bradford, R.; Johnston, M.; Batt, A.M.; Donnelly, E.A. Hazard Flagging as a Risk Mitigation Strategy for Violence against Emergency Medical Services. Healthcare2024, 12, 909.
Mausz, J.; Piquette, D.; Bradford, R.; Johnston, M.; Batt, A.M.; Donnelly, E.A. Hazard Flagging as a Risk Mitigation Strategy for Violence against Emergency Medical Services. Healthcare 2024, 12, 909.
Mausz, J.; Piquette, D.; Bradford, R.; Johnston, M.; Batt, A.M.; Donnelly, E.A. Hazard Flagging as a Risk Mitigation Strategy for Violence against Emergency Medical Services. Healthcare2024, 12, 909.
Mausz, J.; Piquette, D.; Bradford, R.; Johnston, M.; Batt, A.M.; Donnelly, E.A. Hazard Flagging as a Risk Mitigation Strategy for Violence against Emergency Medical Services. Healthcare 2024, 12, 909.
Abstract
Paramedics are increasingly being subjected to violence, creating the potential for significant physical and psychological harm. Where a patient has a history of violent behavior, hazard flags - applied either to the individual, their residential address, or phone number - can alert paramedics to the possibility of violence, potentially reducing the risk of injury. Leveraging a novel violence reporting process embedded in the electronic patient care record, we reviewed violence reports filed over a thirteen-month period since its inception in February 2021to assess the effectiveness of hazard flagging as a potential risk mitigation strategy. Upon reviewing a report, paramedic-supervisors can generate a hazard flag if recurrent violent behavior from the patient is anticipated. In all, 502 violence reports were filed, for which paramedic-supervisors generated hazard flags in 20% of cases (n=99). In general, cases were not flagged either because the incident occurred at a location not amenable to flagging, or because the supervisors felt that a hazard flag was not warranted based on the details in the report. Hazard flagging was associated with an increased risk of violence during subsequent paramedic attendance (Odds Ratio [OR] 6.21, p
Keywords
Paramedics; Emergency Medical Services; Violence; Workplace Violence; Occupational Health and Safety
Subject
Public Health and Healthcare, Health Policy and Services
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.