Prevent sexual harassment at your hospital

There are several steps hospitals can take to prevent harassment. A big one is providing education and communication of what harassment is, what behaviors aren’t tolerated, how to report an allegation, and what the consequences for harassment are.

That means having everyone in the healthcare ogranizationundertake a very straightforward educational program, either by online modules or some other means. It also means that your C-suite and board need to sit down and discuss your organization’s harassment policies.

“Make sure medical staff, as part of their orientation, understand the hospital’s philosophy [on harassment],” says Kate Fenner, PhD, RN, managing director of Compass Clinical Consulting, who specializes in organizational optimization, performance improvement, and regulatory compliance. “And being very quick and very firm about any responses to any incident of harassment. HR, physician leadership, and (most importantly) hospital leaders must all be publicly committed to attaining and maintaining a harassment-free environment for all community members.”

With patients, this commitment is pretty straightforward, she says. Every hospital is required to have a patients’ rights statement, which it ought to be prominently displaying. And those rights include the right to be cared for in a respectful manner.

“The other piece of that is hospitals promulgating how patients can complain,” Fenner says. “Usually, there are either patient representatives or an ombudsman system that allows patients access to give their concerns and complaints.”

Source: News & Analysis