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Workplace Violence Safety & Risk Assessment
WPV Prevention Program — Audit & Mitigation Rubric

Workplace Violence Risk Assessment

Part of the Hospital Safety Risk Assessment (HSRA) Suite

📊 Risk Dashboard

Overall workplace-violence risk score for this unit, the risk band it falls in, and the context used to weight the rubric.

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You don't need to be a violence-prevention specialist to use this.

Any unit leader — manager, educator, charge nurse, or director — can complete it. Your score comes entirely from the Rubric tab, where you answer plain questions about your unit.

Everything else on this Dashboard is optional. Fill in what you already know and skip the rest — the tool works fully even if you leave it all blank. Optional answers simply sharpen which items matter most for your unit.

Takes about 15–20 minutes • Nothing here is required to get a score
Saved

Your answers save automatically on this computer as you go. Use Save Assessment to keep a copy you can store or reopen later — for example, before a shared computer is cleaned. Use Reload Assessment to open a copy you saved before.

Rubric Score
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No scores entered yet
Risk Band
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Complete rubric to see band

📍 Assessment Details

▶ Add unit context to sharpen your results Completely optional — fill in only what you know and skip the rest. Your score works without any of this. These answers just raise the importance of the rubric items that matter most for your unit. Optional

👥 Workforce DemographicsOptional

🏥 Patient / Client Population Risk FactorsOptional

📈 Census & Operational IntensityOptional

🚶 Visitor & Public ExposureOptional

🏗 Physical Layout Risk ModifiersOptional

⚠️ Historical WPV Burden — Last 12 MonthsOptional

🎯 Current Risk Band

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Complete the Rubric tab to calculate your unit's WPV mitigation score and risk band.
★ 100% Best Practice — Full compliance. No action needed.
▲ 90–99% Approaching Best Practice — Leadership selects 1–2 lowest-scoring areas to address annually as budgets allow.
◆ 80–89% Developing Best Practice — Leadership presents lowest-scoring areas to director with action plan and budget estimate.
✖ <80% Needs Significant Improvement — Escalate to VP and director for a funded, multi-year improvement plan.

Section Scores

Score items in the Rubric tab to populate section scores here.

📌 How to Use This Tool — Three Steps

  1. Go to the Rubric tab and score each item. This is the only required part. For each line, pick 2 = Fully Met, 1 = Partial, or 0 = Absent. Mark N/A only when an item genuinely doesn't apply to your unit. Tap any item for a plain-language explanation. You can stop here and still get a complete score.
  2. (Optional) Add unit context on this Dashboard. If you know details like your patient population or incident history, open the "Add unit context" section above and fill in what you can. It never lowers your score — it just flags the items that matter most for your unit with a blue ⬆ CONTEXT-ELEVATED badge on the Rubric. Skip anything you're unsure about.
  3. Review results and plan action. Your score, risk band, and section breakdown appear at the top of this Dashboard. Use the Corrective Action tab to document fixes for any item scored 0 or 1, then save or print for leadership review.
📋 Full Rubric

Each item is scored 0–2 (or N/A) against a best-practice standard and weighted by risk. Lower scores mark higher-priority gaps.

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This rubric scores mitigation control maturity. Each item carries a base risk weight (×1–×5) reflecting the severity of its absence. Your dashboard answers may raise specific item weights — items elevated by your context display a blue ⬆ CONTEXT-ELEVATED badge. Your overall score is not penalized; instead, items that matter more for your unit's context contribute more to your final score. All items with a score of 0 or 1 should generate a corrective action.

Risk Weight Legend

×5
Critical
Absence creates direct, acute WPV exposure pathway — enforcement or systemic failure.
×4
High
High-risk control gap directly enabling significant harm or regulatory non-compliance.
×3
Moderate
Meaningful pathway — organizational gaps compounding violence risk over time.
×2
Guarded
Cumulative or indirect risk — supporting systems that reduce recurrence.
×1
Low
Administrative and awareness controls — no direct acute violence pathway.

✓ Universal Compliance Framework

This rubric is built on the federal regulatory baseline (Joint Commission, OSHA, CMS) combined with the strongest state-law elements (including California SB 553 & §3342, New York OMH and Retail Worker Safety Act, Oregon HB 2552, and applicable statutes from Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Texas, Virginia, and Washington).

Achieving "Best Practice" (100%) on this rubric demonstrates compliance with the strictest applicable standards across U.S. healthcare jurisdictions. State-specific references throughout serve as illustrative anchors showing how the universal framework maps to particular statutes — they do not signal partial coverage. Users in any state may rely on this rubric as a complete compliance assessment of their workplace violence prevention program.

Best Practice & Regulatory Sources

Each control standard in this rubric derives from one or more of the following authoritative sources.

The Joint Commission — Standards LD.03.01.01 EP 9, EC.02.01.01 EP 17, EC.04.01.01 EP 1/6, HR.01.05.03 EP 29 (2022 hospital standards; 2024 BHC update; 2025 expansion)
OSHA — Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Healthcare and Social Service Workers (OSHA 3148, 2016); pending federal healthcare WPV standard
Cal/OSHA — California Code of Regulations Title 8 §3342 (Healthcare WPV); SB 553 / Labor Code §6401.9 (General Industry, July 2024)
CDC / NIOSH — Workplace Violence Prevention for Nurses (CE Course); Home Healthcare Workers Publication; NIOSH 2002-101
ASHRM — American Society for Healthcare Risk Management: WPV Risk Management Framework
ECRI Institute — Healthcare Workplace Violence Prevention Guidance & Alerts
FBI & US Secret Service NTAC — Active Shooter / Threat Assessment Preparedness Resources
IAHSS — International Association for Healthcare Security & Safety: Healthcare Security Industry Guidelines
State Laws — CA SB 553, NY Retail Worker Safety Act & OMH Part 526, OR HB 2552 / SB 537, WA, MD, MN, NJ, CT, IL, ME, LA, TX, VA HB 1919 (where applicable)
Behavioral Tools — Broset Violence Checklist (BVC); ABRAT-ED; STAMP-V; institutional Behavioral Emergency Response Team (BERT) / Threat Management Team (TMT) frameworks
🛠 Corrective Action Plan

Recommended actions for items scoring below full compliance, ordered by the hierarchy of controls, with cost ranges and a five-year return-on-investment projection.

📈 Solution Impact Projection — Score & Injury Reduction

📊 Current Score

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Score items in the Rubric tab

✨ Projected Score

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After all checked solutions implemented

⬆ Score Improvement

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Percentage-point gain in compliance maturity

🩹 Est. Injury Reduction

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Annual WPV injuries prevented (estimate)
Check solutions in the corrective action items below to project score improvement and estimated injury reduction.

🧮 How the Injury Reduction Estimate Is Calculated

Baseline: Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data and CDC/NIOSH research indicate healthcare workers experience approximately 13 violence-related injury events per 100 full-time equivalents per year in inpatient settings without mature WPV controls. This baseline is published in NIOSH workplace violence prevention guidance and is the most-cited industry reference.

Calculation: The risk-weighted gap closed by checked solutions (current weighted score → projected weighted score if all checked items reach a 2) is multiplied against this baseline rate to estimate the annual injury reduction.

Formula: Annual Injury Reduction (per 100 FTE) = Baseline Rate (13/100 FTE) × (Projected Gap Closed − Current Gap Closed)

This is a directional estimate suitable for leadership decision-making. Actual injury reduction varies by intervention quality, staff engagement, and unit-specific factors. References: BLS Workplace Violence in Healthcare 2018; CDC/NIOSH Violence Prevention for Nurses; OSHA 3148 (2016).