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(Un)safe restraints

Healthcare Life Safety Compliance, July 16, 2020

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Healthcare Life Safety Compliance.

by Brian Ward

Someone comes up to you, a healthcare provider, in the hospital and says another patient took a sandwich from them and appears to be high on something. Ideally, you would contact your staff members trained in de-escalation and trust them to peacefully resolve the problem. And if force is needed, ideally you’d trust them to follow policy and restrain the patient in as safe and humane a manner as possible.

You wouldn’t want staff to kneel on that person’s neck for nearly nine minutes until they become unresponsive.

While healthcare and law enforcement do not perform the same job, staff in both industries have many similarities. Both work in high-stress environments. Both often work with people who are upset, scared, aggressive, under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or suffering from behavioral health problems. And both have the power to physically restrain someone if that person is deemed a threat to themselves and others.

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Healthcare Life Safety Compliance.

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