A Message from Andy: MaineHealth's Ongoing Efforts to Address Workplace Violence

 Dear care team members,

The safety and well-being of our care team members, patients and visitors is always a top priority throughout MaineHealth, and our work in that area has an even greater urgency following the tragic events in Lewiston last week.

I’d like to again thank everyone throughout the system who responded quickly to ensure appropriate measures were taken as the events were unfolding, and to review some of the efforts we’ve undertaken recently to address workplace violence prevention (WVP).

Over the summer we stood up our MaineHealth Workplace Violence Prevention Steering Committee, a multi-disciplinary group that has already made good progress in addressing opportunities identified in our extensive system-wide WVP and security assessments.

That committee is focused on six areas to improve, standardize and align process and resources across our system:

1.      Patient Conduct Policy and Response

2.      WVP De-escalation Training Standardization

3.      Plain Language Code Standardization

4.      WVP Data Repository Creation

5.      FY24 Security Assessment Standardization

A lot of excellent work in the area of WVP has been done at Maine Medical Center and some of our other organizations over the past few years, and we are leveraging their experience and lessons learned to ensure we don’t have to reinvent the wheel as we focus on systemwide needs.

Each of our local organizations has developed local workplace violence and prevention committees, and they are actively working to identify their top three safety/security priorities. Please look to your local LHS leadership to share the local plans and investments for this fiscal year.

MaineHealth is actively recruiting for a system Vice President of Security Services to bring expertise and leadership for system-wide security. We have received a number of highly qualified candidates interested in the role and interviews for the position will begin soon.

Importantly, our system scorecard now includes WVP goals, which will help us track and measure efforts happening locally and systemwide.

We know that our many ambulatory, off-campus care locations face unique challenges related to safety and security. MaineHealth Medical Group leadership is actively working on ambulatory-specific measures and plans to address gaps and vulnerabilities.

We will continue to provide updates quarterly on the MaineHealth WVP Steering Committee’s progress as well as other system-based initiatives for security services.

We know we have a lot of work to do to address the spectrum of needs across the system. We are working on them together, with our values of integrity, ownership and innovation guiding our way.

Respectfully,


Andrew T. Mueller, MD
Chief Executive Officer
MaineHealth

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