Introductory Letter and Fact Sheet

Appendix D

Letter of Introduction and Fact Sheet for Healthcare Facilities

Letter of Introduction

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), in collaboration with the University of Iowa, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Old Dominion University is conducting an evaluation of nursing home security programs for preventing violence to employees. We are interested in identifying the most successful and cost-beneficial elements of a nursing home security program and learning about your experiences with the New Jersey Violence Prevention in Health Care Facilities Act. NIOSH and its collaborators are very interested in determining how these new regulations in NJ can most effectively help employers reduce injuries to their workers resulting from violence in the workplace.

Based on your agreeing to participate, we would like to visit your nursing home in the next two months. Attached is the informed consent form to further explain the survey. During our visit, we would like to interview the Chair of your Violence Prevention Committee and learn about any ideas that they have to reduce the risk of violence in health care settings and get their thoughts on the effectiveness of the new NJ regulations.

We have selected your nursing home from a list of all nursing homes in New Jersey and Virginia that fulfill the criteria that have been developed for our survey. We work cooperatively with employers and employees to develop recommendations that will prevent work-related injuries. All information that we collect is secure, and any data that is analyzed will have no personal or facility identifiers. Any written report that we issue will not identify any individual names or the name of the nursing home.

Although participation is entirely voluntary, NIOSH feels it is important for you to complete the survey in order for the study to be successful.

It would be helpful to have the name of a key contact at your facility. We will call you in the next few weeks to inquire about your interest in our survey. In the meantime, please feel free to call James Blando, Ph.D. at Old Dominion University via (757)683-4073 or E-mail jblando@odu.edu with any questions. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Violence Prevention in Health Care Facilities Act Survey

Fact Sheet

James Blando, Ph.D., Field Coordinator

What is the purpose of our survey?

We are interested in learning how nursing homes in NJ and VA have implemented security plans to prevent workplace violence. Security plans for New Jersey nursing homes are required pursuant to the NJ Violence Prevention in Health Care Facilities Act, which requires nursing homes to conduct a security assessment and implement a security plan for employees. The information we learn from this survey will help us to develop recommendations for employers and employees throughout the health care industry and better understand how regulations can be most helpful in producing meaning and beneficial results.

How was your nursing home selected?

We selected your nursing home from a list of licensed nursing home facilities in New Jersey and Virginia. We are planning to survey about 20 nursing homes in NJ and 20 nursing homes in Virginia.

What does the survey consist of?

A member of our project staff will interview the Chair of your Violence Prevention Committee and will review your security plan, policies, and training materials. The interview will take about 60 minutes to complete. The interviews include questions about security procedures, training and violence prevention policies.

Is this information that we collect Secure?

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and its collaborators collect occupational health data for the purpose of doing research on work-related injuries and illnesses. All the information we collect is secure and any written report we issue will not identify any individual names or the name of your nursing home.

Will you give our nursing homethe results of the survey?

Participating nursing homes will receive final results of the study that describe different methods used by nursing homes to increase security. No individuals or nursing homes will be identified in any of the study results.

Old Dominion University (757) 683-4073 jblando@odu.edu