U of M Sparrow Extends Panic Buttons To Home Care Workers

Over the 2021-2022 period, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found their health care and social assistance category experienced the highest counts and annualized incidence rates for workplace violence of any private industry sector. Women made up 78.2 percent of employees in the health care and social assistance category during 2022. There were 41,960 total nonfatal cases of workplace violence requiring days away from work, job restriction, or transfer in the health care and social assistance category over this time, accounting for 72.8 percent of all cases in private industry over the two-year period. These cases occurred at an annualized incidence rate of 14.2 cases per 10,000 full-time workers.

BLS did not separate out health care and social assistance violence, nor have they updated these numbers post COVID.  The social assistance sector has done little, but health care employers are taking measures to protect their employees.  We do know from BLS 2024 fatality data that health care workplace deaths have fallen by 25% while social services deaths have not changed significantly since COVID.  Fatalities in each employee category are less than 1% of overall workplace deaths, so the health care industry problem appears to be injuries, rather than homicides.  Most workplace deaths appear to be due to motor vehicle accidents, in any event.

The latest effort from Michigan Medical's Sparrow operation:

https://www.wilx.com/2026/05/14/university-michigan-health-sparrow-expands-panic-button-program-home-care-workers/

https://www.bls.gov/iif/factsheets/workplace-violence-2021-2022.htm

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.t03.htm

University of Michigan Health-Sparrow expands panic button program to home care workers
Violence against healthcare workers is on the rise across the country and UM Health-Sparrow is among the hospitals scrambling to keep their staff safe.
By Bobby Cushing - May 13, 2026

LANSING, Mich. (WILX) - Violence against health care workers in the United States has seen a sharp increase in recent years, but at University of Michigan Health-Sparrow, something is being done about it.

The hospital system gives out wearable panic buttons for hospital staff to use when they feel unsafe. Now, that program is expanding to staff who work outside of the hospital’s walls.

The button sits behind a worker’s badge and can be tapped in seconds. Thousands of workers already have the button on them, and more than 250 have used it in the last 10 months. Now, members of the hospice and home care team are getting panic buttons of their own.

A hospital is already a high-intensity workplace, with workers spending long hours performing life-saving work. But there is a growing trend of violence against those workers.

A poll from the American College of Emergency Physicians found in 2024, 91% of emergency physicians said they or a coworker were threatened or attacked within the year.

“Some people just don’t call. They deal with it on a day-to-day basis. You know, our clinicians every day deal with things like this in the hospital,” said Chris Nemets, the Regional Chief Nursing Informatics Officer for Michigan Medicine.

To combat this trend, last year the hospital introduced panic buttons, giving workers an option to call for help if they feel unsafe or need assistance. Now those same buttons are being made available to hospice and home care teams.

“If there was a need within a home that they are in, because they go in and out of community homes, that they could call somebody and alert in an easy, discreet way,” Nemets said.

Nemets said the buttons stay out of the way until they are needed.

“And it’s a button that looks just like this that goes right behind your badge. It’s very discreet,” she said. “It’s silent, and it alerts our public safety department that there’s an incident going on.”

“They feel safer if they have a way to call somebody for help. If they get backed up into a corner, what are they going to do? Well, now, they have a duress button on their bodies,” Nemets said.

Nemets said even more workers at Michigan Health could soon get panic buttons of their own, but there is no time frame for that right now.

According to internal data from the University of Michigan Health-Sparrow, those panic buttons saw the highest rate of use in the emergency and behavioral health departments.