Using a Potentially Aggressive/Violent Patient Huddle to Improve Health Care Safety.

Background: Unexpected situations of workplace violence are occurring in the United States at increasing rates in health care environments, warranting increased attention to processes supporting safety for health care workers. At a large, academic hospital, two patient safety incidents had occurred in a two-year period in which a patient had become violent at the time of admission from the emergency department (ED) to the medical unit.

Methods: A multidisciplinary quality improvement (QI) team was formed to address the risk of violent patient events.