GAO: Healthcare Workers Are Five Times as Likely to Experience Workplace Violence

​Workers in healthcare facilities experience substantially higher rates of nonfatal injury from workplace violence than workers in the private sector overall, and further action must be taken to ensure worker safety, said the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). GAO analyzed three federal data sets and found that in 2013 healthcare workers at inpatient facilities experienced injuries from workplace violence that required time off at a rate that was five times that of overall private-sector workers. GAO estimated the incidence of nonfatal workplace violence cases in healthcare in 2011 to range from 22,250 to 80,710. Hitting, kicking, and beating were the most common types of reported assaults.