According to the Health Promoting Hospitals and Health Services International Conference held in Berlin this year, 98 percent of emergency room nurses in the Unites States reported verbal harassment and 67 percent reported physical violence.  While in Canada, 84 percent of the nurses in the emergency department witnessed verbal harassment once in every shift.  While there are 90 percent of them claimed to experience verbal abuse at least once a week.  In Australia, there are 70 percent of nurses who experience violence at least five times a week.

Emergency department are experiencing violence and it has been escalating year after year.  So how are the hospitals coping and resolving this concern?

To come up with solution regarding this problem, it is important to define emergency room violence and differentiate it from other forms of violence.  Emergency room violence is different since it involves patients, family, relatives and close friends.  These violent acts came from feelings of frustrations, vulnerability and lack of control over health emergencies.

Violence prevention training for hospital staff is one step in reducing the incidence of violence in hospital emergency rooms.  Potentially violence patients and visitors can be recognized by the hospital staff by attending training in violence prevention.

Some preventive measures and procedures are already being undertaken by the healthcare institutions to prevent this escalating violence.  Some security measures include metal detectors at entrances, photo ID cards for staff, badges for visitors, patient processing policies to lessen waiting time, controlled access to hospital buildings, secure telephone communications,  locked doors to emergency rooms, closed circuit TV monitoring and trained security guards.

Nursing Solutions Now (NSN) offer some protection tips to emergency department health care workers.  They have the D.O.G.G.S. or Defusing of Grievance Grants Safety.  To use the D.O.G.G.S. method, it is important to understand the mindset of the potentially violent person and that is by communication with the person.  It is necessary to practice active listening.  Avoiding confrontation is also one step to build trust and therefore provide help. It is important to allow the person to verbally vent out the emotions without comment or judgement.  Getting a suggestion from the aggrieved party is essential and the person’s suggestion might even be reasonable.  To preserve the person’s dignity, move toward a win-win resolution.

To further address these attacks and harassments,  the Nurses Association in the Unites States is promoting a bill  (A6186/S3441) aimed at violence against nurses.  With this bill A6186/S3441, any acts of assault that may cause physical injury to a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse while on duty will face Class C felony charges.  This same provision already exists for assaults made against policemen, firemen, peace officers, and emergency medical technicians.  The bill was passed by the US State Senate  last April 2, 2008 and is currently awaiting the decision of the Assembly.

Meanwhile in Canada, the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) is exploring the effectiveness of their Criminal Code to address healthcare professionals experiencing violence. CAN promotes that the employers should enforce strategies to prevent, identify and address violent behaviours, examine the root cause of violence and take steps to address them and provide mandatory education and training to management and staff.

Different nursing organization could come up with different ways or tips to avoid and prevent emergency room violence.   But it is also important thing is developing or making sure that there is a backbone or law supporting our emergency nurses against possible violence in their workplace.  But the first step against violence is prevention.

Travel nursing is a popular career option for nurses nowadays. It offers a minimum of 18 months to 2 years of clinical experience that most facilities prefer. This gives a chance for nurses to see new places as well as to work in new environments, far from the conventional set-up in hospitals.

Being a traveling nurse, you are given the opportunity to go wherever you wish to go while still practicing your profession. With this, you can expand your resume and be able to work at some of the country’s top medical facilities. You can freely choose jobs close to your home or anywhere across the country.

Normally, most travel assignments last 13 weeks though some traveling nurses company can customize the length of the assignments according to their needs. There are also other companies that offer short-term ands quick-start travel assignments, usually lasting from 4 to 8 weeks.

A good advantage to this kind of job is that, there are no annual contracts so you can work as many assignments as you like. This also means a stable financial income for you.

So how can you find the best traveling Nurses Company? It is true that one of prime factors that travel nurses look for is the high pay. However, it is not always the chance of getting better wages but it is also the opportunity to choose your benefits. This means that you should look more closely to individual companies and what they can offer you.

So what exactly are the benefits you expect from being a travel nurse? Here are some of the basic options you can find on various traveling nurses company and agencies:

1. Favorable working hours and conditions – Of course it is no doubt that nurses and health care professionals are in demand. Many companies are offering them a time off as a motivation to work for them. Most companies do all the possible ways to keep working hours a reasonable level such as hiring travel nurses who can temporarily work for them. This means that there is less demand for overtime works, allowing nurses to have time for themselves, their personal activities, as well as their families. The aim is two fold – a give and take relationship. With this reward, companies are not only attracting potential nurses and keeping quality employees but also they realize that nurses can usually maximize their nursing tasks when they are handling reasonable hours of work with sufficient staffs to provide backups.
2. The tangibles – As a travel nurse, not only you are offered with top dollars but you are also given the privilege of receiving several benefits which are not given to nurses before. Some rewards may seem small to some people but can become big time issues eventually. One example of this is direct deposit. This may seem just a small detail but as soon as you are getting your paycheck, for instance on a Thursday night but you failed to make the trip to the bank Friday and wind up with a check that hasn’t still been cashed out the following week.
3. Part-time, situational and temporary jobs – If you are a nurse who meets situational criteria, there are companies out there which can offer you great job placement. If you don’t want to have the responsibility of a full-time job but want to work only a few weeks at a time, you are given lots of good options without working full-time. There are companies that provide placements to people like you. But be cautious to choose the reputable traveling nurses company. Be wary of signing a long-term contract that bounds your work with other companies.
4. Education – If you want to be viable in the travel nursing marketplace, you may want to advance your education. You can make the wise move of getting some additional training to advance your career with education.
5. Pay – Of courses nurses choose their field to help other people but it’s no question that money is attractive.