The leading cause of death in the workplace is homicide, followed by motor vehicle injury and finally machine related fatalities. Hospital workers are at highest risk of suffering a fatal injury. Important to physicians is the fact that more assaults occur in the health care and social services industry than any other occupation.
Workplace violence is defined as physical assault, or threat of assault on the job.
There are one million U.S. victims of job-related crimes annually. Men are victimized on the job more often by a stranger, while women are most often attacked by someone they know. The cost of this victimization is high when one considers the economic loss of wages, costs of medical bills, workmen's compensation claims, and the emotional costs of fear, anger, stress and depression. An estimated 3.5 days of work are lost annually per crime. Bodily injury resulted when an anesthetist was pushed by another health care provider.