Mayo Clinic Launches Staff Duress Solution for 7,000 Employees

Workplace violence is defined by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) as “violent acts (including physical assaults and threats of assaults) directed at individuals in the workplace or on duty.” [1] According to the World Health Organization, between 8 and 38 percent of healthcare workers experience physical violence during their careers.

In addition, a certain percentage of healthcare workers face situational threats and verbal aggression. Most of these incidents originate from patients and visitors. Healthcare workers most affected by violence are those directly involved in patient care, such as nurses, emergency room staff, and paramedics.

Source: [1] CDC/NIOSH. Violence. Occupational Hazards in Hospitals. 2002.

According to a report by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), 75 percent of all workplace assaults in the United States are related to healthcare or social services [2]. Physical assaults account for 11 percent of these workplace assaults. The 2018 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows that healthcare workers are five times more likely to experience workplace violence than workers in other occupations [3].

The rate of workplace violence in healthcare nearly doubled between 2010 and 2021. Survey results show that 48 percent of 2,500 hospital nurses have experienced an increase in workplace violence, up from 30 percent in 2021 [4]. As a result of workplace violence, burnout rates among nurses are increasing, and 30 percent of nurses are considering changing careers in 2023 [5]. Five of the top 15 reasons for doing so are related to workplace safety [6]. According to the American Journal of Managed Care, only 30 percent of assaults on nurses are reported worldwide.

Healthcare professionals should not have to fear for their safety when caring for patients in hospitals. With rising rates of workplace violence in healthcare, the EP9 requirement of the Joint Commission Workplace Violence Prevention Standards mandates that hospitals must have “policies and procedures in place to prevent and respond to workplace violence.”

A Joint Commission report also shows that timely intervention helps prevent assaults. Prevention measures can take the form of verbal intervention or physical restraint. Discreet, body-worn emergency buttons, for example, are an effective way to prevent workplace violence in hospitals.

Mayo Clinic began implementing RTLS architecture and infrastructure across all clinical areas at its three destination sites in 2018. Today, more than 650,000 sqm of Mayo Clinic is covered by an RTLS network with active RTLS solutions.

Mayo Clinic uses Bluzone, a cloudbased Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for the centralized management of BLE beacons via WiFi gateways. Bluzone is a web-based console that provides a user interface to read and configure the entire fleet of BLE beacons and BluFi devices.

Mayo Clinic configures different policy types for all beacons or for a group of beacons so that emergency signals are sent in different situations. These policy types include presence, battery, temperature, motion, location and more. Violations of these policies are documented and sent as an alert via email to the appropriate personnel.

Mayo Clinic has introduced a wearable solution to address workplace violence: the Staff Duress Badge for employees who encounter duress. Leveraging the already implemented RTLS infrastructure, Mayo Clinic has rolled out this solution at its campus in Rochester.

The project began in November 2021 and was completed in November 2022. HID collaborated with Mayo Clinic in this project. The project was designed to support 7,000 hospital staff and healthcare providers in care units identified as high risk violent behavior.

BLE beacons are integrated into the employee badge covers. These beacons actively transmit a signal on different frequencies and communicate with the RTLS infrastructure. On the back of the badge cover is a button that triggers an emergency signal when pressed.

When an employee presses the button, an LED begins to flash and a signal is sent. The signal is received by BluFi BLE antennas or receivers. These antennas and receivers communicate over the mesh network and transmit the received data to the Bluzone Cloud.

In the cloud, various data cleaning technologies are applied to determine a location based on signal thresholds for each of the antennas. Through the system, the security team automatically identifies the identity, occupation, and current location of the person who is in an emergency situation.

Active location updates are received, allowing the security team to accurately locate the distressed employee, even if they have moved since the emergency call was initiated. Once the security team arrives, they follow standard Mayo protocols to mitigate the situation. After the event, they generate an incident report so the situation can be further investigated.

During the 12-month project, 167 emergency calls were recorded at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. When a badge was put into service, tests were conducted to reduce false alarms.

The result: the false alarm rate dropped from 32 to 11 percent. 84 percent of employees feel relatively safe at work, and there is increased awareness of areas and situations where violence is possible in healthcare.