CoxHealth running pilot program on personal panic buttons for staff
Springfield MO Feb 9 2020
In his own words, Keith Mathis is built like a “tank.”
At 6 feet, 9 inches tall, he said he’s used to being able to handle anything life throws at him while he’s at work at CoxHealth.
“I’ve been hit, kicked, spit on — the whole gambit,” Mathis said. “Luckily, I’m a big guy and it’s fairly difficult to damage me. I’m like a tank.”
But not everyone is built like him. As assistant director of the Emergency Department, Mathis has seen an increase in verbal and physical violence toward his colleagues from patients in the eight years he’s been at Cox South. He’s also heard from staff members through surveys that they are concerned about their own safety.
In a push to keep his co-workers safe, Mathis and a team worked to develop a personal panic button. The device is innocuous, can be clipped to a collar and sends out signals using technology like radio-frequency identification (RFID) and infrared, Mathis said.
“There are sensors in the ceiling that it’s communicating with,” Mathis said. “If you go into a room and press the button, it sends a burst signal out and sensors either see it or RFID works with it.”
With the help of the CoxHealth’s Innovation Accelerator — a program to develop employee-led performance improvement initiatives — Mathis said it took about six months to get the panic button ready for a pilot launch at the end of December. The program will last about 60 days in three units, including the ER, Inpatient Care and Neurotrauma ICU.
Mathis said they are tracking a few things over the next several weeks, including the number of workers’ compensation claims.
“Because when those go down, we know people aren’t being hurt,” Mathis said. “That’s our No. 1 thing we want to see.”
Also, safety is a top priority.
“When you feel safer at work, that will translate into the care you give,” Mathis said. “You feel the difference between an uptight and scared worker and a relaxed worker.”
Mathis said the program will also be tracking security officers’ response time.
Before the personal panic buttons, Mathis said there were call buttons in patients’ rooms.
“You never want the patient or the problem person between you and the door,” Mathis said. “The call light or panic button is on the back wall, so you usually couldn’t get to it. What that meant was yelling over your shoulder, out the door, ‘Hey, I need help in here. Somebody call security’ and continue that until you knew somebody had heard you.”
Mathis has been there himself.
“I’ve been in a room, holding a patient down by myself, yelling over my shoulder,” Mathis said. “I’ve been in that position and it’s not fun.”
Aside from a few bugs to work out, Mathis said he’s been hearing positive feedback about the buttons.
“They’ve been working really well,” Mathis said. “We had some false activations, but we’ve had plenty of real activations. We’re perfectly happy having a few false activations for the benefit of having extra people when you really need them.”
Mathis said he hopes to expand the program to other departments after the pilot is complete.
Cox isn’t the only one with panic protocols for staff. Mercy’s Communications Manager Sonya Kullman said via email that staffers wear panic necklaces in behavioral health areas, including the Marian Center and the ER. There are also wearable panic buttons for some in the Surgery Center and in the Fitness Center, she said.
“We’re actively working to expand this capability,” Kullman said.
Springfield News Leader
