As physical and verbal assaults against healthcare workers continue to increase, new technology allows hospitals to quickly and accurately locate imperiled workers and identify problematic encounters.
Research indicates that 40% of healthcare workers were exposed to workplace violence in the last two years. In fact, workplace violence inside healthcare settings has become so serious that the industry experiences more non-fatal workplace violence than any other profession–outpacing even law enforcement and wreaking havoc on an industry already struggling with understaffing and financial pressure.
Today, Cognosos–a leading provider of AI-enabled, real-time asset location solutions–announced the launch of Cognosos Guardian to help hospitals more effectively protect staff faced with increasing instances of workplace violence. Cognosos Guardian includes a discreet, wearable staff duress button that upon activation allows hospitals to locate the employee who is wearing the badge in real-time– regardless of if they are moving within a facility, outside in pathways or in a parking lot or garage.
“Prolonged exposure to workplace violence puts employees at greater risk of developing mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression and burnout–which negatively impacts worker productivity and increases turnover,” said Braxton Jarratt, CEO of Cognosos. “Empowering hospitals with a campus-wide security solution is the first step toward fostering a culture of safety. From the time staff park and until they leave, Cognosos Guardian helps hospitals protect the physical and mental wellbeing of employees regardless of their location at work.”
Cognosos Guardian is a comprehensive workplace safety and duress offering, designed to prevent and or deescalate problematic situations by being:
- Easy to use: Intuitive functionality requires minimal training. The wearable badge includes a self-test feature to give staff peace-of-mind before they start their shift or enter an area where they are concerned about safety.
- Discreet: Minimal form factor of the badge and alert button provides haptic feedback to confirm the button press was successful and help is on its way.
- Fast: Uses a dedicated network specifically designed for low latency and avoiding network bottlenecks.
- Quick to install: Lightweight infrastructure simplifies deployment which reduces time to ROI.
- Accurate: Patented LocationAI provides enhanced location confidence at implementation and provides accurate location over time as it continues to learn the environment.
- Comprehensive: The solution expands coverage and can function indoors and outside with beacon-enabled pathways and parking lots/garages.
In addition to the wearable alerting solution, Cognosos Guardian includes a full incident management suite that integrates seamlessly with existing code, security and communication systems. This incident management suite offers forensic reporting with historical event insights, enabling hospitals to continuously improve response times and process efficiency while strengthening compliance efforts with regulatory agency standards.
“Traditional staff duress solutions come with inefficient and slow-to-install infrastructure, as well as hefty price tags,” continued Jarratt. “Cognosos Guardian’s lightweight infrastructure allows hospitals to quickly reap the rewards of reducing workplace violence without undergoing lengthy installation projects that put patient rooms and hallways out of order and staff at risk.”
