Work Place Harassment Law

Hospital Workplace Violence – Self Defense Training For Nurses Includes Many Non-Combative Options

Workplace violence in the healthcare sector has hit an all-time high! Statistics show that, typically, the average nurse is assaulted on the job 1 to 3 times a year and very few facilities have anything more than a “shell” policy to address this problem and prevent injury to it’s staff.

Arenyou concerned about the problem of workplace violence effecting nursesnand other medical professionals? Well, you’re not alone.

In fact, the healthcare industry has awakened to this very real problemnin the past few years. Administrators have found that previousnassumptions and policies about workplace violence, as it relates tonhospitals and the medical industry in general, have done little tondeter or prevent the countless injuries to nurses and caregivers. Innfact, the problem has escalated to the point where the healthcarenprofession is ranked third among all non-law enforcement and security occupations in the number of incidents which occur!

Third! Among all other professions!

And, the sad fact is that medical professionals are not being targeted by their own co-workers – but by their patients – the very people that they are trying to help!

Manynleaders, as-well-as staff-duty nurses who work with patients everyday,nare calling for more workplace violence self-defense training gearedntoward nurses and patient care professionals. Unfortunately, mostnadministrators confuse self defense with fighting and therefore arenconcerned about the possibility of more violence if their nurses andnstaff members were trained in self defense tactics.

As a way tonshow the difference between fighting and actual defensive tacticsntraining geared toward workplace violence prevention, here are 4 areasnof workplace violence defensive tactics training that have absolutelynnothing to do with fighting – and everything to do with empoweringndoctors and nurses to avoid, evade, and prevent a dangerous workplacenviolence attack from hurting them or others that they are responsiblenfor.

• 1) Strategic Positioning. This is similarnto what police officers are taught when knocking on doors, interactingnwith drivers during a traffic stop, etc. Nurses can be taught to adjustnwhere they stand or position themselves relative to their patients tonmake it difficult for the person to hurt them if they lashed out andnbecame violent.n

• 2) Body language. By becoming more aware of thenconscious and unconscious interpretations that we can have when we seendifferent body language cues, the caregiver can learn to avoid thosenthat might trigger a negative response – while also choosing cues thatncan easily and effectively defuse a potentially hostile workplacenviolence situation.n

• 3) Vocal skills. This is the same as body language butnwhere we can consciously and deliberately control the use of our voice.nSpeech patterns, rhythm, and vocal intonation can all be powerful toolsnfor defending yourself in a workplace violence encounter.n

• 4) Environmental Control. Often, caregivers arentrapped in a violent situation because of the layout of the clinic innwhich they work. Simple changes to your work environment – from examnrooms to customer service counters – can be made that will aid innavoidance, evasion, and escape tactics, while also serving to controlnthe flow of action should a physical workplace violence attack occur.

Asnyou can see, if you’re really looking for viable solutions to helpingnyour nursing staff to be able to employ self defense tactics to dealnwith violence in the workplace, there are many more options availablenthan merely teaching them how to fight!

What if you could getnthis type of training while also saving your organization from thenfinancial and other losses from lost-time, employee turn-over, legalnliability, and negative PR that often arise out of incidents involvingnviolence in the workplace? How? By instituting defensive trainingntactics that both keeps your staff safe AND maintains a high level ofnprofessionalism and liability control!

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Communicating not only … COMMUNIGREAT!

By Irene Becker, CCTA Irene Becker is President of Just Coach It, a professional coaching firm specializing in effective living, leading and communicating at the speed of change. Please do not hesitate to contact Irene at irene@justcoachit.com, or to visit Just Coach It on the web http://www.allhottips.com First and foremost effective communication is essential to not only organizational success, but success in one’s personal life. Effective communication promotes interpersonal understanding and problem solving. I was hired to first do personal coaching with focus to be determined by each core Team Dave Logan member, and the mandate changed to dealing the communication skills of each core Team Dave Logan member and areas of communication that they wanted to improve. While we live in what has been deemed the information age, the preponderance of advertising, media and instruments of communication has perhaps dealing with staggering amounts of communication to absorb and less and less time to effectively use and improve our communication skills. Communication can not be measured by the amount of communication that is exchanged, but by how many messages are received, understood. Clear communication is key as we all filter verbal information through what we want to hear and are expecting to hear. It is important to always verify what the receiver of one’s message understands the message to be and to move away from personalizing questions that may arise, and focus on clarifying what one wants to communicate. Here are two major communication skills areas and three areas of speaking and listening that are key to effective communication. I) SPEAKING SKILLS A. Slowing down our though processes to understand the message B. Making our self understood C. Testing our conclusions about what is being communicated II) LISTENING SKILLS D. Listening constructively E. Getting the essence of the communication F. Exploring any disagreement that may arise as a result of the communication Let’s take a closer look at what makes good speaking and listening happen! A. SLOWING DOWN OUR THOUGHT PROCESS Slowing down our thought process is key to clearly expressing our opinion. Thought is a really rapid process. Our minds are capable of receiving, evaluating, interpreting and classifying thousands of bits of information simultaneously. Most of the mental digestion of our communication takes place unconsciously. As such while we are very aware of the results of our communication, we are not usually aware of the process. It is really important to delivery clear messages to the receiver of our communication. If we do not make sure that we are delivering both a clear message and also a reason for this message the receiver may not get what we are trying to say. Slowing down our thought process is key to clearly expressing our opinion because in order to clearly transmit our message the receiver must understand not only the conclusion we are stating but how we arrived at the conclusion. If we want our thought processes to be understandable to the receiver it is very important that we explain the basis for our message. B. MAKING OUR SELF UNDERSTOOD While making oneself understood in English to another English speaker sounds really easy it is not. While we all speak the same language the words that we use can have different meanings or none at all the receiver of our communication. We all know that it is important to clarify the meaning of technical terms to an outsider; we often forget that it is of equal import to make sure that the receiver understands the meaning behind our words. In the best of communication checking the message received is always a good idea because it allows us to make sure that the message that we are sending is the one that is received. While the person we are communicating may be listening they must also be hearing our meaning and not what they hear through their personal psychological, sociological filters. Our usage of receiver friendly vocabulary is also key because if the receiver does not consider the words we are saying to be of importance, of the vocabulary we are using does not speak to them personally we will lose their interest and attention. We have to always make sure that when transmitting information we are using words, phrases, images and metaphors that the receiver is accustomed to and that we are always checking that the receiver is following what we are saying, not what they are hearing us to say. We have to be responsible for the effectiveness of our communication and it starts with speaking the language of the receiver and making sure that what we are saying is clearly understood. C. TESTING CONCLUSIONS Encouraging others to ask questions about our conclusions does not weaken our communication effectiveness but rather strengthens the communication rapport between sender and receiver. Letting others in on the reasons behind our conclusions, encouraging them to ask questions a

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