St. Mary's Health System of Lewiston, Maine, has provided wearable duress buttons to all 1,220 of its staff.
The health system, part of Covenant Health, has locations spanning the greater Lewiston-Auburn region of Maine. The locations include a 220-bed acute care community hospital, a network of primary care and specialty providers, urgent care, an emergency department, behavioral and mental health services, outpatient specialty practices and eldercare facilities. The employees at all these locations received their duress buttons Aug. 19.
Two other Covenant Health hospitals already have deployed similar technology. They are St. Joseph Healthcare in Bangor, Maine, and St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Covenant Health is at least the second CHA member to outfit staff with distress buttons. Bon Secours Mercy Health deployed similar technology last year.
St. Mary's leadership gave the devices to staff in response to expressed concerns about workplace violence, according to a release. The health system, part of Covenant Health, heard from employees that they wanted a way to summon help quickly and discreetly when they believe their safety is at risk. St. Mary's heard this feedback through surveys on the culture of safety and through reviews of on-site safety events as well as through the St. Mary's Workplace Violence Prevention Committee.
That committee includes frontline nurses, emergency department staff, outpatient practice staff and providers. It previewed the devices, made by Canopy, and its members were enthusiastic advocates for the rollout, the release said.
St. Mary's employees can use the buttons not just within facility walls but also in parking areas. When they press the button, designated nearby colleagues receive an alert, as does St. Mary's security team. The alerted colleagues and officers respond to the employee to help assess and address the potential security threat.
The security team and switchboard team have received in-depth training on protocols for responding to the alerts.
Jill Rollins, St. Mary's chief nursing officer and chief operating officer, said in the release that "listening to our staff and investing in technology that makes their work safer is part of how we continue to evolve."
St. Mary's said workplace violence is one of healthcare's most pressing challenges. Most tools available to healthcare facilities — including policies, training and response protocols — focus on the moment violence occurs or the aftermath. The wearable duress buttons are for the "critical window before that point," according to the release.