Practice Management Alert

No one wants to experience sexual harassment, but make sure you're prepared to respond.

Sexual harassment and sexual misconduct has been a big part of the national conversation lately; lamentably, Hollywood and politics aren't the only industries that foster hostile workplace environments.

Medicine, generally, has a hierarchical organization that can foster abuses of power, especially in medical schools and hospitals, where the power differential is huge and people are working in high-stress environments on little sleep. Providing medical care is necessarily a very physical, intimate job, which only creates more opportunities for medical professionals to be harassed or to inflict harm on patients.

"For healthcare providers in the United States, the risk for nonfatal violence in the workplace is 16 times greater than that for other workers," says Jill S. Boissonnault, PT, PhD, associate professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and fellow authors in their article, "Prevalence and Risk of Inappropriate Sexual Behavior of Patients Toward Physical Therapist Clinicians and Students in the United States" in the August 2017 volume of Physical Therapy journal.

"Inappropriate patient sexual behavior [IPSB] is directed at clinicians, staff, or other patients and may include leering, sexual remarks, deliberate touching, indecent exposure, and sexual assault. Inappropriate patient sexual behavior may adversely affect clinicians, the organization, or patients themselves," the article reports.

Though their research focuses on physical therapists, other healthcare works certainly are not immune.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 specifies sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission describes how the safety and comfort of a workplace can be compromised by untoward behavior: "Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment."

Put Policies in Place

If you don't already have policies and procedures in place for sexual harassment, don't wait.

Practices should have policies and procedures in place to help employees navigate workplace misconduct, including specific instructions for harassment by co-workers, superiors, or patients.

These policies should provide guidance on how employees can complain, as well as reassure them that they won't lose their jobs for lodging a complaint against a colleague or a patient, says Fisher Phillips LLP, a law firm focused on workplace law, in an August 2010 issue of its healthcare newsletter, Healthcare Update.

Make sure that your practice includes training on sexual harassment and misconduct in new employee orientation, and provide additional - more frequent - trainings as well, so everyone is on the same page. These trainings should guide staff on how to react in the moment if theysuffer harassment from a patient, and how to reportany incident, whether it originated with a patient or a co-worker.

Top tip: Teaching staff how to diffuse a situation, especially if it involves a patient, is crucial. Empower staff to speak up if they feel uncomfortable; some people genuinely may not realize that their own behavior is discomfiting for others.

Respond Immediately to Allegations

Your practice should treat any allegations of abuse or harassment as serious and investigate immediately. If an employee comes to you with allegations, the most important thing you can do right off the bat is believe him or her.

But choose your words carefully. "Managers should be careful to avoid assuring an employee that he or she will comply with a request that 'nothing be done' or to keep the allegations confidential," says Katherine Dudley Helms, office managing shareholder at Ogletree Deakins in Columbia, South Carolina, in a recent post on National Law Review.

The power differential in a small practice can be especially stark, and handling allegations against a team member, as well as make an investigation difficult. The difficulty can be magnified if allegations are against a physician, but don't hesitate to take swift, decisive action against anyone responsible for wrongdoing. "Healthcare entities must take these actions in spite of the prospect of losing a significant revenue generator or a critical skill in a single physician," she says.

"Failing to address the situation creates legal liability and sends a loud negative message to employees regarding the importance the organization places on its workforce versus certain key employees," she adds.

Plus, the employer - your practice - is responsible for ensuring that the workplace is safe and comfortable for everyone. Various court rulings have shown that that responsibility extends to third-parties like patients, so make sure you're equipped to resolve allegations and support your staff.