Health policy
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Workplace violence is a significant and widespread public health concern among health care workers, including nurses. With growing awareness of how practice environments influence patient outcomes and the retention of health professionals, it is timely to consider the impact of workplace violence in hospitals. Registered nurses in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada were surveyed on their experiences of violence in the workplace over the last five shifts. ⋯ Most violent acts are perpetrated by patients, but there is also a significant portion of violence and abuse committed by hospital co-workers, particularly emotional abuse and sexual harassment. Our results also indicate that the majority of workplace violence is not reported. We suggest that using the Broken Windows theory might be a useful tool to conceptualize why workplace violence occurs, and that this framework be used to begin to develop new violence prevention policies and strategies.
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This paper examines the role of credible commitment in facilitating long-term decision making in health care. Commitments are defined as an undertaking by one party to perform a certain task in the future. Policy objectives and political imperatives within public sector organisations can often mean that decision making takes place on shifting institutional terrain. ⋯ Such forms of commitment are usually apparent in various policy measures such as health service constitutions, long-term contracting, legislation and incentive payments. Measures that secure credible commitment allow the discount rate to be reduced on long-term decisions of not only public sector organisations but also those stakeholders who rely on stable public sector institutions. However, the importance of the notion of commitment needs to be recognised against the background of other institutional factors that may influence decision making.