Report: Violent crime increasing at hospitals and clinics

"More and more violent crimes are occurring in America's hospitals, clinics and other health care facilities, according to a new alert issued by the Joint Commission, an independent health care oversight group," USA Today reports.

"Since 2004, there have been 'significant increases in reports of assault, rape and homicide, with the greatest number of reports in the last three years,' the group said in its 'Sentinel Event Alert' released last week, the latest in a series of alerts on serious adverse events occurring in health care settings." Russell L. Colling, a health care consultant who advised the Joint Commission, "cited a number of reasons for the increase in violent outbreaks in health care settings, including an increase in drug and alcohol abuse and a lack of adequate care for psychiatric patients," according to USA Today (Behen, 6/13).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.