Hospitals spend billions to respond to a growing threat of violence: report

Diving brief:

• Trying to prevent, prepare and recover violent acts, including assault, murder, suicide and fire, hospitals cost $ 18.3 billion in 2023, according to a report by the American Hospital Association published on Monday.
• Health systems spend more than $ 3.6 billion a year on training, security and changes to overthrow violent incidents in their facilities, AHA said. The sector spends more than four times that – approximately $ 14.7 billion – on post -events in general, the lion’s share was devoted to health care costs for fatal and non -fatal injuries.
• In a declaration accompanying the report, the renewed AHA calls for stronger workplace protections for health workers in the light of the conclusions and urged legislators to adopt the law on health workers, which would make it a federal crime to attack a worker from the hospital at work.

Diving insight:

Violent incidents have progressed regularly over the past decade and have become more pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic, when health workers are increasingly the targets of attacks.

Service providers also respond to an increase in community violence and dealt with millions of victims per year in the emergency room. They support indirect costs, in particular by having to support increased safety measures to try to protect workers.

The new AHA report, which was produced in partnership with The Washington School of Medicine University Research and Prevention Center, according to cumulative impacts, is a financial burden of several billion dollars.

The highest cost comes from the care of victims of attacks, according to the report. The AHA noted that hospitals paid more than $ 13 billion a year to treat victims of deadly and non -fatal attacks. Costs include the management of unpretentious patients and what the so-called lobbying group is the deficit in the underpaids of the public insurance program.

Hospitals also pay money to protect their staff from possible violence, in particular by investing in the development of emergency management policies, upgrading security systems and the development of violence intervention programs.

Indirect costs may also appear in the form of absenteeism or the attrition of employees linked to violence, according to the report. Together, these costs is equivalent to around 541.3 million dollars per year.

The collective tension weighs on the sector, warned the AHA. The lobbying organization has called on legislators to support bipartite legislation that would introduce more strict sanctions for attacks on health workers – similar to sanctions for attacks on employees working in the air transport industry.

“With the increase in violent events in clinical areas across the country, the resources necessary to protect hospital workers and victim care increased exponentially,” said the president and chief executive officer Rick Pollack, in a statement. “Each member of the health care team has an enormous risk and burden of this violence. This report is another reminder that we must make more to protect them. ”