On Wednesday, Jan. 17, ED nurses at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center received death threats over something written in a patient’s chart. This is appalling. It is terrifying for these nurses and an unacceptable breach of safety and security.

Nurses must be able to chart truthfully and accurately for the sake of safe patient care. Their notes in a patient’s chart should never be weaponized against nurses as they were here. It is our sincere hope that law enforcement is able to identify the responsible individual and take all steps needed to secure the safety of the nurses they threatened.

At bargaining on Friday, we shared your questions and concerns with PeaceHealth’s management and asked them for updates on the investigation into these threats. Management shared the following details, which we told them we would share with you to ensure you had the most accurate information available:

• Local law enforcement was notified of the threat immediately after it was identified. Since then, both the FBI and the Department of Health have become involved in the investigation.
• PeaceHealth’s internal risk and compliance teams are participating in the investigation as well.
• If a nurse has information they believe would be helpful to the investigation, management encouraged them to share it directly with law enforcement. Otherwise, nurses do not need to take any action at this time and will hear directly from law enforcement if their assistance or input is needed.
• Management has committed to sharing regular updates about the investigation with nurses and with WSNA to the extent it is consistent with law enforcement’s recommendations.

We plan to continue our conversation with management when we begin contract negotiations on Monday morning and will provide updates to you as soon as we have them.

If you have questions or comments contact WSNA Rep Travis Elmore Nelson at telmore@wsna.org or 206-575-7979 ext. 3117.