Staff members at a Missouri hospital will soon be receiving panic buttons as a way of protecting them from violent patients after outbursts of assaults rose dramatically.
At Cox Medical Center Branson, nearly 50 miles outside of Springfield, assaults on staff members by parents tripled in the last year. More than 120 members of the hospital staff were assaulted, a sharp rise from the 40 that took place the year prior. The assaults caused injuries to also increase from 17 to 78, according to NBC News.
“When Public Safety response is critical and it’s not possible to get to a phone, person panic buttons fill a critical void,” said Alan Butler, the CoxHealth’s network head of public safety.
“Personal Panic Buttons (PPBs) are one more tool in the battle to keep our staff safe and further demonstrate this organization’s commitment to maintaining a safe work and care environment.”
The implantation of the panic buttons began last year in certain areas where assaults were more common. The program’s apparent success led to the decision by administrators to roll the safety measure out to the Cox Medical Center Branson.
“Working in the emergency department, a lot of times our patients are becoming increasingly violent lately, said Ashley Blevins, a nurse for CoxHealth, to KYTV. “So it’s nice that we have the chance to press our button and security knows exactly where we are. And if we end up having to chase a patient down, they know where our last location is.”
Blevins blamed the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects that it’s had on hospital systems as the reason behind the rise in violence.
“They come in here and then they have to sit in here because everywhere’s full,” Blevins said of patients. “We have no placements to put anybody and that’s just frustrating on the patients, it’s frustrating on us. I think that’s increasing a lot of violence.”
