Western Health's Predict, Prevent. Pritioty: Safety Occupational Violence and Aggression program challenged an organisational mindset that tolerated and normalised occupational violence and aggression (OVA), addressing key beliefs and unsafe practices and moving towards a safety-first approach.
The Predict, Prevent. Pritioty: Safety program introduces a range of tools, training, awareness campaigns and leadership advocacy that changed the culture of OVA at Western Health and continues to reduce physical and psychological injuries in staff.
The uptake of the preemptive, proactive Planned Code Grey (Code Black outside of Victoria) call, increased by 351% since the rollout of the program and significant injuries related to Occupational Violence and Aggression have reduced by 100% since 2019.
The implementation of a myths and facts campaign has helped flip normalised practices such as the belief that "I have to protect the patient even if it means putting myself in harm's way", to "If I am at risk of harm, it is ok to step away." The message that staff safety is our priority has been underpinned by our CEO and Executive leadership and is a key element of why this campaign has been so successful in changing a culture.
We have won two Public Healthcare Awards and a WorkSafe Award for our work in this area and continue to share our program with other health services and industries across Australia. We have recently been in collaboration with the Saskatchewan Workers' Compensation Board and the Saskatchewan Health Authority, Canada, to share our learning with them and help plan for the roll-out of an OVA program in their health services.
I hope by sharing our program we can help reduce workers from being exposed and injured from violence and aggression in the workplace.