Reducing Aggressive Patient Behaviors Through the Implementation of the Brøset Violence Checklist

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have mandated that hospitals identify patients at risk of self-harm or harm to others and take steps to minimize those risks. The quality improvement project aimed to determine the effectiveness of implementing the Brøset violence checklist (BVC) on reported behavioral events in an acute care inpatient setting. The project found that current practices were inadequate in preventing violent events, and staff did not proactively assess patients for the risk of violence. The project conducted a literature review that demonstrated the negative impact of workplace violence on healthcare workers and found that violence against healthcare workers increased during the pandemic. The project's preliminary results suggest that implementing the BVC can be an effective strategy in reducing the number of reported behavioral events in healthcare settings. Staff education and training were identified as keys to preventing and minimizing threatening situations' impact. By using the BVC and providing staff with training, healthcare organizations can improve staff well-being and create safer environments for patients and healthcare workers. The preliminary data shows that completing the BVC on admission successfully allows staff to implement appropriate interventions to prevent patients from becoming violent and has reduced behavioral events. The utilization of the BVC is high, indicating a practical implementation of the tool into the staff's workflows. Additional data will be collected for the remainder of the implementation phase to confirm these outcomes. Based on the data analysis, the recommendation is to continue performing the BVC assessment during admission to identify at-risk patients for violence so that staff can implement preventative interventions and reduce behavioral events and workplace violence.