The Joint Commission has approved the prepublication standards for the Prevention of Workplace Violence, that take effect January 1, 2022. These prepublication revised standards address Environment of Care, Human Resources, and Leadership. The Environment of Care standard requires an annual proactive worksite analysis, the investigation and review of how the organization’s policies, education, training, and design on the subject comply with applicable laws and regulations and how the facility initiates processes and policies on safety and security incidents involving workplace violence.
The Human Resource standard requires the organization have a workplace violence prevention program in place that defines criteria which demonstrates workplace violence. The plan must set forth education for staff roles when workplace violence incidents occur and the reporting thereof, as well as training of personnel in de-escalation techniques, physical and non-physical intervention, and emergency incident response.
Finally, the Leadership Chapter requires a designated person be appointed by each facility to lead the Workplace Violence Prevention Program, overseeing the policies and procedures in place to prevent and/or respond to an incident. The lead must ensure processes for reporting and reviewing such incidents and trends, along with follow-up and support of such incidents with victims and witnesses be adhered to. The standard also requires these violent incidents be reported to the organization’s governing body.
Check out the following link below for these revised standards that will be subject to survey beginning in 2022.