16 N A T I O N A L N U R S E W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G J U LY | A U G U S T | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 1
Joanne Imwalle, RN, was determined
to reduce Code Grays at Kaiser Permanente Roseville Med-
ical Center, a facility in Northern California with nearly
2,000 nurses. A veteran PICC nurse, Imwalle had served as
her hospital's nursing quality liaison since 2012, which
meant she worked on quality patient care and patient safety
issues. She was privy to what was happening in each unit,
including workplace violence, because she attended safety
and professional performance committee (PPC) meetings.
As she learned about violent incidents in the hospital and
clinics, she realized that they had an ongoing problem:
Despite a special workplace violence computer code that
nurses could use to immediately summon a Threat Man-
agement Response Team (TMRT) to head off trouble, a
system that Imwalle herself helped develop, incidents were
Quality Control
Nurses find that key
components of successful
workplace violence
prevention programs are
education, reassessment,
and refinement. Kaiser
nurses collaborate on
projects to do just that.
By Chuleenan Svetvilas
