Nursing

Avoid security liability hot spots

Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education, September 27, 2007

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By assessing security risks and responding, hospital security programs help maintain safe facilities and protect patients, visitors, and staff members. And by knowing the reasons commonly behind lawsuits, directors can learn from the experiences and mistakes of others who have been sued for inadequate security measures, and develop more effective programs themselves. The following are some of the top reasons for lawsuits involving premises security, and how hospitals can avoid them:

  • Failure to assess and respond to risks. Be sure your security program meets the needs of your facility. You need to assess risks and respond to them. When you have an incident occur, look at what you can do to prevent a future problem.
  • A reduction in security resources. Sometimes budget cuts are necessary. Your hospital may be looking at facility wide cuts to create cost savings. But before a hospital considers a cut to its security program, ask the following: Can you do it in a way that is logical and defensible? Consider the losses prevented and reduction in incidents by having a good security program in place.
  • Negligent hiring. Ensure that your facility adequately screens potential employees before hiring them. If an employee commits a crime, a facility will have a problem if a proper background check was not done.

To get more information, go to Hospital Safety Center (HSC). For the cost of just three stories, you can get the entire September issue of HSC. Click here to choose between the PDF and HTML versions for just $30. Subscribers to the online version of HSC have free access to this article. Subscribers to the print newsletter can find this article in their September issue.



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