Empowering Nurses and Staff with Personal Duress Badges: A New Tool for Workplace Safety

Learn how combining staff badges worn on uniform with an enterprise RTLS platform can provide healthcare workers 24/7, hospital-wide protection.

Workplace violence is an issue that’s overtaking healthcare facilities all over the country, leaving staff and patients feeling stressed, dissatisfied, and unsafe.

Understanding the Impact of Healthcare Workplace Violence

Did you know that healthcare workers have a 20% higher chance of being the victim of workplace violence than other workers? 75% of nearly 25,000 workplace assaults reported annually occurred in health care and social service settings¹.

The presence of workplace violence in healthcare facilities can divert caregivers from patient care and have them focusing on recovering, protecting themselves, or acting as a counselor to their peers. Violence should not be a part of the job, but unfortunately it is unpredictable. Despite other security measures, workplace violence still occurs. Hospital security leaders are making tremendous strides in safeguarding their facilities. There's been significant time, effort, and investment in a range of electronic security measures— things like weapons detection, visitor management, access control, and extensive CCTV networks. All of these are designed to reduce the risk of physical or verbal violence, and they do, to an extent. But the reality is, these measures alone can’t eliminate the threat. It’s time to discuss a solution. Create a culture that empowers staff to report issues and get support with an advanced Staff Protection solution.

Transform Hospital Workplace Safety with RTLS

RTLS technology is at the forefront of the industry, paving the way for not only visibility to the location and status of people and things, but fresh insights into how to operate more efficiently, improve care delivery, and create safe care environments for both caregivers and patients. As workplace violence becomes increasingly pervasive for healthcare workers, it’s time to consider how RTLS can be used to protect staff members too.

Securitas Healthcare has developed a suite of actionable solutions designed to help reduce physical injury, improve security response to staff duress events, heighten real-time situational awareness, and provide peace of mind to healthcare workers.

How Does Our Staff Duress Solution Work?

Our portable staff badge, worn on uniform, allows staff to easily and discreetly call for help from anywhere in the hospital, providing peace of mind they don’t need to yell for help, pull out their phone or press the nearest fixed station panic button. Once the staff badge button is pressed, Instant Notifier sends a signal to security and other personnel indicating the staff member’s need for help with current location so security personnel can launch a rapid, effective response. MobileView software monitors and documents who called for help, at what time, where they were, location updates and time of resolution, allowing security to fill out crucial reporting information after a workplace violence incident occurs.