In April 2024, Signature Health mental health treatment facility based in Maple Heights, Ohio had an incident where a patient attacked a nurse. The patient continuously stabbed the staff using a knife he carried into the facility.
The Maple Heights facility just had one security officer, who, with the help of other facility personnel, took away the knife and stopped the patient’s attack. In compliance with the law, Signature Health reported the workplace injury to the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Afterward, OSHA conducted an investigation that led to the issuance of a citation against Signature Health for a serious violation of the OSH Act general duty clause, referring to the failure to keep workers safe from violence in the workplace.
Signature Health agreed to pay a $16,131 penalty to settle the violation. It also took steps to improve its program for preventing workplace violence. During the six months after the attack, Signature Health implemented some procedures at the Maple Health facility to enhance worker safety.
Those procedures include installing weapons recognition equipment, employing experts to examine its processes, strengthening its program for workplace violence prevention by updating weapon response and readiness processes and creating a position that would take care of violence prevention and response in the workplace. Staff have gotten more training, which includes knowing how objects aside from weapons like guns and knives could be utilized as weapons. Signature Health established workplace violence committees and added signage that say weapons are not allowed inside its facilities. The health facility will extend the program to cover all other Signature Health facilities, and not just Maple Heights.
OSHA Area Director Howard Eberts in Cleveland, said that considering this unsettling incident, Signature Health has worked hard with OSHA to enhance its safety protocols and has approved procedures to minimize the possibilities of future incidents. An extensive workplace violence prevention program calls for screening processes, efficient employee HIPAA training, and quick assessments of incidents and near-misses to deal with risks and ensure continuous process improvement.