On December 6, 2016 the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a Request for Information (RFI) on whether the agency should propose a standard aimed at preventing workplace violence in the health care and social assistance sectors.  The RFI follows a report from the Government Accountability Office (http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/675858.pdf) that found rates of workplace violence in those industries are “substantially higher” than in private industry overall. The full extent of the issue is unknown, GAO stated, but the most recent available data from 2013 showed that health care workers at in-patient facilities, including hospitals and nursing and residential care facilities, experienced a rate of workplace violence five to 12 times greater than the general private-sector worker population.

In 2011, the most recent year data is available, there may have been as many as 80,170 instances of violence against workers in healthcare facilities, OSHA has stated.  According to GAO, the most common types of reported assaults are hitting, kicking and beating.  They also report that incidents likely are underreported.

In July, a coalition of labor unions sent a petition to Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez, calling for a standard on preventing workplace violence in health care. That same month, Silver Spring, MD-based National Nurses United sent its own petition to Perez and OSHA administrator David Michaels, detailing proposed elements of a standard.

The deadline to submit comments is April 6, 2017 and a public meeting on the matter has been scheduled for January 10 in Washington.

Stephen Burt
Chair, Government Affairs Committee

Dec 8, 2016