Real Solutions to Workplace Violence

Summary

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Advancing Health Podcast: "Real Solutions to Workplace Violence"

Host: American Hospital Association
Date: June 3, 2026
Guest: Sarah Hunter, President, Gottlieb Memorial Hospital/Loyola Medicine
Host/Interviewer: Jordan Steiger, Director of Behavioral Health and Violence Prevention, AHA

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Episode Overview

This episode spotlights effective, practical approaches to reducing workplace violence in healthcare, highlighting the experience and initiatives at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital. Sarah Hunter discusses concrete strategies her team employs to keep staff safe, the importance of listening to frontline workers, and the necessity of trust and community partnerships. The episode ties into AHA’s “Have Hope Day,” a national event raising awareness of violence in healthcare and celebrating progress.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Need for Workplace Violence Prevention

[01:32 — 02:00]

• Sarah Hunter: “Supporting and building a safe environment for our healthcare workers is one of the top callings that we have in healthcare today.” She underscores that caring for caregivers—by preventing and addressing workplace violence—must be a leadership priority.

Issues Driving Change

[02:03 — 02:49]

• Increasing complexity of patient cases and evolving challenges in healthcare have heightened the risk of dangerous situations.
• Mental health and potential for escalation among patients are notable concerns.
• Leadership must focus on building processes, risk mitigation, education, awareness, and meaningful support for staff.

2. Practical Interventions: The “Buddy System”

[02:52 — 04:33]

• Gottlieb Memorial implemented a “buddy system” across all three hospitals, focusing on:
  • Patient risk assessment at the front door using standardized, evidence-based tools applied not only to clinical risks but to behavioral risks as well.
  • Visual cues to alert staff of high-risk patients.
  • Respectful searching of belongings and monitoring of visitors.
  • Ensuring staff never enter rooms alone if there is any risk of escalation—public safety personnel accompany clinicians and support staff.
• Notable Result:
  • Sarah Hunter: “That has led to increased trust. It's safer for the patients, it's safer for our colleagues, and really most drastically has reduced any sort of adverse outcome, any workplace violence towards our clinicians in the last year.” [04:15]

3. Trust as the Cornerstone

[05:03 — 05:34]

• Sarah Hunter: “That trust becomes very, very critical and really is the cornerstone, I think, of healthcare and where we need to go.”
• Trust within teams and across disciplines strengthens resilience and cooperation in tense situations.
• Creating psychological safety enables staff to do their jobs well and feel comfortable and protected at work.

4. Broadening the Approach: Partnerships and Community Engagement

[07:02 — 09:09]

• Workplace violence prevention stretches beyond hospital walls to ambulatory, home health, and hospice settings.
• Continuous process improvement requires ongoing monitoring, evolving protocols, and comprehensive training.
• Major partnerships include:
  • Local public safety: Police, fire, and first responders contribute to drills and understanding hospital-specific procedures.
  • Advocacy and industry organizations: AHA and state hospital associations provide resources, best practices, and advocacy support.
  • Building these relationships ensures first responders understand hospital workflows and fosters trust during crisis response.
• Sarah Hunter: “Safe hospitals, safe health care is a key part of safe communities. Right. They go hand in hand.” [09:34]

5. Advocacy and Spreading Hope: Highlighting “Have Hope Day”

[09:49 — 10:27]

• For Have Hope Day (June 5), Gottlieb Memorial is:
  • Encouraging staff discussions about positive changes and reasons for hope.
  • Spotlighting workplace safety progress internally and via public channels, including social media.
  • Partnering with AHA to amplify messaging and promote resources.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sarah Hunter [01:32]:
  “Supporting and building a safe environment for our healthcare workers is one of the top callings that we have in healthcare today.”
• Sarah Hunter [04:15]:
  “Our colleagues never enter those rooms alone… That has led to increased trust. It’s safer for the patients, it's safer for our colleagues, and really most drastically has reduced any sort of adverse outcome.”
• Sarah Hunter [05:03]:
  “That trust becomes very critical and really is the cornerstone, I think, of healthcare and where we need to go.”
• Sarah Hunter [09:34]:
  “Safe hospitals, safe health care is a key part of safe communities. Right. They go hand in hand.”

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00: Introduction to “Have Hope Day” and the episode’s focus
• 01:32: Sarah Hunter on her passion and leadership approach to workplace safety
• 02:52: Detailed explanation of the “buddy system” and its impact
• 04:33: Discussion of the cost-effective, trust-building nature of the interventions
• 05:34: Addressing community member trust and patient safety
• 07:02: Ongoing process improvement and community partnerships
• 09:49: Highlighting Have Hope Day and plans for staff engagement and public awareness

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Episode Takeaways

• Simple, scalable interventions—like a buddy system—can substantially improve safety and do not require major investments, but a culture of trust is vital.
• Leadership must create processes and provide resources that support staff, both in preventing violence and responding if it occurs.
• Partnerships with first responders and advocacy organizations amplify the impact and sustainability of safety efforts.
• Workplace safety is inseparable from community safety, and collaborative advocacy is essential for real progress.
• Recognizing progress and sharing stories of hope builds morale and helps sustain motivation across healthcare teams.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Advancing Health. Now in its 10th year, have hope Friday is a national day of awareness to end violence both in communities and in the hospital workplace. In this podcast, we get a progress report on how one health system is meeting that goal.

[B]

Hi, my name is Jordan Steiger, and I'm the director of Behavioral Health and Violence Prevention at the aha. We're here today to talk with Sarah Hunter, the president of Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, about AHA's have Hope Day, which is happening this year on Friday, June 5, and some of the work she and her team are doing at their organization to support workplace violence prevention. So, Sarah, welcome to the show.

[C]

Yes, thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

[B]

So tell us a little bit just about who you are and where you come from.

[C]

I am Sarah Hunter. I am the president at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, which is a part of Loyola Medicine in the Chicagoland area. Our parent company is Trinity Health, based out of Michigan. So I've been here for just over six months, but have been in the area in healthcare administration for a long time.

[B]

And I'll add, you are a member of AHA's Hospitals Against Violence Advisory Group.

[C]

I am. It's a great honor to be a part of that advisory group. It's been a lot of fun and interesting so far.

[B]

Yes, we love having you. So. And I mean to mention that you are so passionate about improving outcomes around workplace violence. And so we wanted to get you here today to just tell us a little bit about some of the work that you're doing at your own organization and how you're supporting your workforce.

[C]

Yeah, I am very passionate about this topic. I find that supporting and building a safe environment for our healthcare workers is one of the top callings that we have in healthcare today. At Loyola Medicine, we've been really focused on building the environments that really care for our caregivers in all ways, and that includes avoiding workplace violence, supporting them if an incident happens, and really making sure that we build the right type of awareness around the issues that are facing our healthcare workers today.

[B]

And tell us what you think some of those big issues are.

[C]

So, you know, I think, you know, the world has changed. You know, healthcare in particular has really changed over the last decade or so, and the people that we are seeing within our walls are becoming more and more complex, and that lends itself to some situations that can sometimes get dangerous. There are a lot of different factors that influence how we care for a patient. And their mental health, their ability to escalate, can really be Something that takes its toll on our colleagues that are here within our system. So for me, you know, in leadership and administration, it is really our job to build good processes that support our colleagues, to make sure we're mitigating risk, to provide education, to build awareness both inside the hospital, outside the hospital, and to make sure they're offering meaningful support and intervention when necessary.

[B]

What does that look like in the day to day?

[C]

Part of why I have so much hope for where we are going with reducing workplace violence is it's really about listening to the colleagues who do the work. Here at Loyola Medicine, we have really strong interdisciplinary support from our frontline colleagues about the things that make a difference to them day to day. I'll give you one example. Across our system at all three hospitals, we instituted what we call a buddy system, which is a really simplistic way of looking at a process that we've really used to improve the safety for our colleagues. It really involves starting at the front door of our hospital, making sure that we are assessing patients for their risk to escalate. We use a standardized tool, which is very common in healthcare, but we've applied it to behavior as well, to know if a patient could possibly escalate to aggressive situation. From there, we mitigate the situation with a number of things, including, you know, making sure there's a visual cue for staff that this person could be somebody that would escalate, making sure that we're respectfully searching any belongings and being mindful of visitors that come into the space. And really what's been the most impactful part of this process is that for these patients and these situations where there might be a danger, our colleagues never enter those rooms alone. And so our public safety team, who's a great partner with us here for our clinicians, goes into those rooms with our clinicians, with our EVS personnel, with food nutrition, to make sure there's a second person in that room that could be a potentially bad situation for those moments that could escalate. And that has led to increased trust. It's safer for the patients, it's safer for our colleagues, and really most drastically has reduced any sort of adverse outcome, any workplace violence towards our clinicians in the last year.

[B]

I love that everything you just mentioned doesn't cost a ton of money. Building that trust through having support, having a buddy person to come with you in a room or those visual cues, those are all things that I think lots of different, different organizations could do. You mentioned some of those evidence based tools that you can use to assess Risk. And those are out there, you know, those are out there for anybody to use. And I know a lot of our members are using those already, but I think there's still opportunity to kind of think about how we can use those resources that are available to us.

[C]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think you hit on it just there too. That trust is really the biggest part of this equation. It's amazing what people do when they start to have trust with one another across disciplines. In a hospital setting where every spoke of that wheel really matters for patients, patient care. And when you introduce complex situations like a potentially aggressive or violent or dangerous situation that could result in harm, that trust becomes very, very critical and really is the cornerstone, I think, of healthcare and where we need to go.

[B]

Absolutely. And you know, when you're talking about trust too, I think about the community and you know, the patients and families coming into your organization to get care that's going to enhance trust with them too, if they know that they're going to be safe and get the care they need without having all of these, you know, kind of external factors.

[C]

Absolutely. And I also just to add, the patients that come in that need our care sometimes are not at their best state. Often are not in their best state. Right. And so this gives our caregivers the latitude and the space to connect to their purpose of why they're here in the first place. They are here to take care of patients, to make sure they're giving that life saving care, whether it's an emergency room or a labor and delivery unit or an inpatient unit, wherever that might be, an ambulatory setting. And these types of factors or worrying about what could happen really can get in the way of that good care. And so processes like the ones that we've developed here and have, we've seen great success in, really help navigate that. So caregivers can do their jobs and feel like they can go home and stay safe and feel like they've done a good job that day and they've cared for the people that they came to care for.

[B]

Absolutely, absolutely. I think that's just so important for mental well being, for, you know, feelings of psychological safety, for, you know, wanting to come to work and feeling good, being at work and like you said, just being able to deliver the care that they need to deliver, whether that's clinical care or, you know, providing care through administrative work or EVS or I mean, there's a million different ways.

[C]

Yeah. So I think, you know, for us it is about continuing this good work. We want to make sure. We continue to develop processes that we get the right people around the table to have conversations about workplace safety, continuing to really monitor and adapt and evolve to the communities that we serve and to the situations that we might be in. I think workplace safety really expands not only from the hospital setting, but to the larger community, to the ambulatory network, to home health and hospice, making sure that we're developing, again, the right processes, the protocols, the right training, the right education. There are a lot of really phenomenal tools out there that we can use to keep our workforce for safe. And it is the future for us to be able to use those in a way that really makes a difference. I think beyond that, our community partnerships are becoming more and more critical. We partner very closely here at Loyola Medicine with our local public officials, with public safety officials, with our elected officials, to make sure that there's a mutual understanding of the priorities of both parties so we can align and work together. The critical partnership locally in each of our hospitals communities is our local police department, fire service, our local first responders, police department in particular, has been really beneficial for us because we can partner on safety drills, on making sure that they understand the inner workings of places like our emergency room, so if there is an incident, they can respond. I think getting to know our team, our leadership style, also helps because when they come into a difficult situation, they already know how we operate and how we work. And it's much easier for them to support our teams if we've built up that relationship. I think the second really influential partnership that we have is with advocacy groups and organizations like the Illinois Hospital association and the American Hospital association, who gives us a plethora of resources to make sure that we are implementing best practices, that we're thinking really strategically about workplace safety, that we're looking meaningfully at trends in the industry. And that is something that we utilize often to help our conversations and our advocacy efforts.

[B]

Absolutely. I'm glad you brought up the advocacy piece. That's such an important part of this conversation, and it's something that everybody can do, and, aha, has a ton of resources to help you do that. But, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I think the community partnership piece is also so important. Just acknowledging that we don't have to do this alone as hospital leaders. There are a lot of people in the community that we can work with and partner with to make our hospitals safer, but also our communities safer.

[C]

Safe hospitals, safe health care is a key part of safe communities. Right. They go hand in hand. And so to think that we are in it alone would be foolish with the best thing that we can do is partner and find those partnerships that can make a lasting impact.

[B]

And last question for you today. How are you spotlighting have hope day on June 5th?

[C]

So we are going to spotlight it by really talking about it. So we want to talk to our colleagues about why they have hope, what they've seen change in their work environment. Really talk about the processes that we've implemented that have kept them safer than they have before, than they've been before. And that'll be a big part of what we do. And I think even beyond that, we'll be partnering with the aha. We also want to take part in having a strong presence on social media and public facing to talk about why we have hope in the organization and what we are doing about workplace violence and what we are doing to address it.

[B]

Sarah, thank you so much again for being here today and sharing a little bit about the work you're doing. I think this really does say spread great knowledge and great hope to our other members and maybe gives them some ideas of things that they can do on Friday, June 5th for have Hope Day. So thank you for being here.

[C]

Thank you again for having me.

[A]

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