Letter of Introduction and Fact Sheet

Appendix D

Letter of Introduction and Fact Sheet for Healthcare Facilities

Letter of Introduction

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), in collaboration with the University of Iowa, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Old Dominion University is conducting an evaluation of hospital security programs for preventing violence to employees. We are interested in identifying the most successful and cost-beneficial elements of a hospital security program and learning about your experiences with the New Jersey Violence Prevention in Health Care Facilities Act. NIOSH and its collaborators are very interested in determining how these new regulations in NJ can most effectively help employers reduce injuries to their workers resulting from violence in the workplace. Participation in this survey is strongly supported by the NJ Hospital Association.

Based on your agreeing to participate, we would like to visit your hospital in the next two months. Attached are the informed consent form, to further explain the survey, and a list of the documents that would be helpful with our survey (such as OSHA 300 logs, employee injury incident reports, training materials, and written security plans, if available). Survey participates will be asked if they would be willing to share their workplace violence training materials, policies, and security plan with the field survey team prior to the visit so that survey team members can prepared prior to the visit. During our visit, we would like to interview the Chair of your Violence Prevention Committee and learn about any ideas that they have to reduce the risk of violence in health care settings and get their thoughts on the effectiveness of the new NJ regulations.

We have selected your hospital from a list of all hospitals in New Jersey that fulfill the criteria that have been developed for our survey. We work cooperatively with employers and employees to develop recommendations that will prevent work-related injuries. All information that we collect is secure, and any data that is analyzed will have no personal or facility identifiers. Any written report that we issue will not identify any individual names or the name of the hospital.

Although participation is entirely voluntary, NIOSH feels it is important for you to complete the survey in order for the study to be successful.

It would be helpful to have the name of a key contact at your facility. We will call you in the next few weeks to inquire about your interest in our survey. In the meantime, please feel free to call James Blando, Ph.D. at Old Dominion University via (757)683-4073 or E-mail [email protected] with any questions. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Violence Prevention in Health Care Facilities Act Survey

Fact Sheet

James Blando, Ph.D., Field Coordinator

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What is the purpose of our survey?

We are interested in learning how hospitals in NJ have implemented security plans to prevent workplace violence. Security plans for New Jersey hospitals are required pursuant to the NJ Violence Prevention in Health Care Facilities Act, which requires hospitals to conduct a security assessment and implement a security plan for employees. The information we learn from this survey will help us to develop recommendations for employers and employees throughout the health care industry and better understand how regulations can be most helpful in producing meaning and beneficial results.

How was your hospital selected?

We selected your hospital from a list of licensed acute care and psychiatric facilities in New Jersey. We are planning to survey about 50 hospitals throughout the state.

What does the survey consist of?

A member of our project staff will interview the Chair of your Violence Prevention Committee and will review your security plan, policies, and training materials. The interview will take about 45 minutes to complete. The interviews include questions about security procedures, training and violence prevention policies.

What other information will we need?

Prior to our visit, we would like to review materials that will help us understand your security plans, workplace violence training and type of incidents related to workplace violence.

If available during our visit, we would like to obtain data regarding the number of workplace violent incidents that have occurred in your hospital from 2005 through the present time. This information is typically available in the following public documents:

• OSHA 300 Logs

• Employer’s Reports for Occupational Injury and Illness

Is this information that we collect Secure?

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and its collaborators collect occupational health data for the purpose of doing research on work-related injuries and illnesses. All the information we collect is secure and any written report we issue will not identify any individual names or the name of your hospital.

Will you give our hospital the results of the survey?

Participating hospitals will receive final results of the study that describe different methods used by hospitals to increase security. No individuals or hospitals will be identified in any of the study results.

ld Dominion University (757) 683-4073 [email protected]