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Abstract
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OBJECTIVE: To examine violence inspections at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
METHODS: The authors examined all inspections that involved violence against workers begun by January 1, 2019. They conducted semi-structured interviews with compliance officers who had conducted inspections on a sample of facilities that received general duty clause citations (GDC) citations (n = 22) or hazard alert letters (n- = 22).
RESULTS: By January 1, 2019, OSHA initiated 726 "violence" inspections, with 502 (69.1%) in healthcare. In healthcare, 45 (11.1%) resulted in General Duty Clause (GDC) citations and 241 (67.7%) in Hazard Alert Letters (HALs). GDC facilities received statistically significantly lower scores in 5 of 6 domains examined through semi-structured interviews than HAL facilities. Both groups of facilities had poorly designed recordkeeping systems.
CONCLUSIONS: Health care facilities continue to generate worker complaints with poorly designed violence prevention programs.
Language: en |