Minnesota Hospital Association

Quality & Patient Safety

Workplace violence prevention

Minnesota’s hospitals and health systems want to ensure that hospitals are places of healing and safety. Hospitals and health systems are constantly working on violence prevention, including providing ongoing, regular training for health care staff and refining security plans and incident response plans.   

In 2013, a public-private coalition of health care stakeholders including MHA, MDH, the Minnesota Medical Association, the Minnesota Nurses Association, Care Providers of Minnesota, LeadingAge Minnesota and a number of health care facilities throughout the state was formed to provide resources to hospitals, long-term care facilities, clinics and other facilities to help identify risks for violence and put effective strategies in place. This stakeholder group published a gap analysis on workplace violence prevention in 2014.    

In 2015, the Minnesota Legislature passed a law that hospitals must design and implement preparedness and incident response plans for violence that takes place on their premises and provide training for employees. Hospitals were required to have these plans in place by Jan. 15, 2016.    

In 2016, MHA, MDH and the Minnesota Sheriffs’ Association formed a healthcare and law enforcement collaborative to improve collaboration when patients are involved with law enforcement.

MHA members can log in to the website at the top-right corner of this page to view the preventing violence in health care gap analysis and additional workplace violence prevention resources. 

Download the preventing violence in healthcare gap analysis:

preventing violence in healthcare gap analysis