Hospitals Gearing Up for Window Protection Amid Uptick in Violence and Looming Hurricane Season
The impact of COVID-19 on our lives has been dramatic and far-reaching. One under-the-radar issue has been the uptick on attacks on our nation’s health care workers. It had been an issue prior to COVID as workplace violence in health care facilities had resulted in the deaths of 58 hospital employees from 2011 to 2016.
COVID-19 has made matters
worse. Specifically, the crushing realty for family members not able to see
their loved ones infected with the virus and even more so when they die without
being able to say good-bye has increased the animosity toward health care
workers even more.
As a result, a bill
aimed at workplace violence protections for health care workers has passed the
House, as the Biden administration has urged lawmakers to advance legislation.
The Workplace Violence Prevention for Healthcare and Social Service Workers Act
passed the House in April and currently is working its way through the Senate.
The bipartisan measure aims to require reporting and prevention policy mandates
for health care facilities, where workers have been an increasing target of
physical violence.
Part of protecting
health care workers is protecting the buildings they work in, mainly hospitals.
And one of the first lines of defense in any hospital building is protecting
the windows and glass entranceways. The lesson there can be learned from all
the violent intrusions we have witnessed in our nation’s schools in recent
years. A number of the intruders gained entrance through unprotected glass
doors and windows.
The solution is pretty simple: The installation of security window film or polycarbonate security glass system is the best way to keep armed intruders out of your hospital or other health care building. Although security window films have been around for years, they have increasingly been the go-to window protection for many of the country’s high-profile government buildings as well as commercial buildings.
Both the security window films and polycarbonate glass
protection systems have been proven to hold glass in place under the most extreme
bomb blasts.
Another threat to hospital buildings and health care
employees have been the uptick in severe spring and summer storms – specifically
hurricanes and tornadoes. When Hurricane Michael stuck Florida in 2018 the
impact on
hospitals and other health care facilities in the state’s panhandle was
enormous. Nine hospitals suffered so much damage they were forced to close.
Also, five nursing homes and 15 assisted-care facilities also closed. In
each case, patients had to be evacuated to other facilities.
Damage to the buildings
included destroyed roofs, buckled walls and shattered windows. Considering the
enormous importance of always safe and functioning health care facilities are
to communities, hospitals increasingly are looking for ways to make their
buildings safer for their patients and employees.
As with the increased
violence and armed intrusion threat to hospitals, health care officials
increasingly are considering protecting their windows from foul weather threats
as well. Security window films and polycarbonate glass protection systems hold
the glass in place, keeping it from shattering and sending shards of glass
flying through the building, causing serious injuries.
For example, after a series
of hurricanes struck Florida’s east and west coasts in the early 2000s, the
University of Florida & Shands Medical Center in Jacksonville installed
10,000 square feet of fragment retention film on 395 windows. The hospital is a
critical care center making it difficult to move its patients should a weather
disaster strike.
When hospital officials
consider protecting their windows they want to be certain they hire a security
window film and polycarbonate glass protection system
installer with considerable experience and expertise. For more than 35 years,
Commercial Window Shield has been one of the country’s leading installers of
security window films and other glass protection systems.
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