NEW GUIDE FOR VIOLENCE RESPONSE

Standards a road map for health care policies, practices

Local officials published standards last week to guide the way health care workers across the county screen for and respond to domestic violence when meeting with patients.

District Attorney Summer Stephan’s office said they “provide a countywide roadmap for medical professionals, who are often the only individuals able to see domestic violence victims alone away from their abusers.”

The document, titled “San Diego County Healthcare Standards for Intimate Partner Violence,” was developed by the San Diego Domestic Violence Council’s health care committee, and reviewed and approved by county officials from the District Attorney’s Office, Emergency Medical Services and the Health and Human Services

Agency’s Department of Public Health Services.

Representatives from most of the county’s top health systems — including UC San Diego, Sharp, Palomar and Rady Children’s Hospital — helped develop the standards.

“Healthcare personnel in a wide variety of settings are in a unique position to identify (intimate partner violence) and provide support to these victims,” the document reads. “Providing patients an opportunity to speak with a healthcare provider about domestic violence has been found to be highly related to the victim accessing services, as well as reduced future exposure to violence and better health.”

The six standards focus on:

• screening for abuse; • planning for a patient’s safety and connecting them with resources;

• assessing for choking or “non-fatal strangulation”; • collecting evidence; • reporting suspicious injuries to law enforcement;

• other mandated reporting guidelines.

“These steps are saving lives and we hope the implementation of these (standards) ... countywide help drive this change home,” Michelle Shores, director of forensic health services for Palomar Health, said in a news release.

Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county’s public health officer, said in the news release that the purpose of the standards “is to have a collective and coordinated healthcare community response as we see and treat patients who have experienced violent crime.”

Claudia Grasso, president of the San Diego Domestic Violence Council, said in the news release that the goal is for “universal screening in healthcare settings, where every patient is asked whether they are experiencing abuse.”

The standards build on the “Health CARES Initiative” launched in 2019 across the county. CARES is an acronym for the steps to screen for and respond to domestic violence.