Toward a More Effective Policy Model for Responding to Workplace Violence in the Texas Healthcare System

Workplace violence is a growing social problem that that has caught the attention of public stakeholders and policymakers. Likewise, industry observers have pushed for more attention to be paid to how violence in the workplace uniquely impacts healthcare professionals. Recently, Texas legislators responded to these calls by passing the Workplace Violence Prevention Act. This new law represents a significant milestone in the effort to develop durable protections for employees in the healthcare Texas system and prevent future incidents of workplace violence. The aim of this technical paper is to provide policymakers and corporate stakeholders with an introduction to this issue and to suggest future improvements to this landmark piece of legislation. In what follows, we will provide a brief overview of the background and significance of workplace violence as a challenging issue that uniquely impacts the healthcare system, outline a working definition of workplace violence that respects the healthcare context, and review existing regulatory and corporate policies that have emerged to combat workplace violence in practice. We will then provide an overview of this new legislation and suggest several ways that this law can be strengthened in light of existing research.