According to a survey put out by Trusted Health earlier this year, half of all nurses have been the subject of an attack, intimidation or assault by a patient or patient’s family member since the start of the pandemic.  Our guest for today’s episode, Mel Cortez, experienced this first hand working in a Baltimore area ICU. Later, when she saw how many nurses were leaving the profession because of workplace violence, she was inspired to start Cortex Gold, a joint venture between two nurses and a Marine Corps veteran whose mission is to help hospitals create a safer, more secure workplace for nurses and other healthcare workers. Today she and Dan talk about what a culture of safety actually looks like, Mel’s protocol-based approach to handling incidents of violence and the role that nurse managers and nurse leaders play in making hospitals a safer place to work.  Links to recommended reading:  Fact Sheet: Health Care Workplace Violence and Intimidation, and the Need for a Federal Legislative Response Toolkit for Mitigating Violence in the Workplace  The full transcript for this episode can be found here: works.trustedhealth.com/handoff/mel-cortez-violence-against-nurses -| The Nurse Podcast Channel is made possible with support from IHI. Learn more about how IHI is transforming health care education at IHI.org -| This episode originally aired on November 9, 2022 on The Handoff Podcast. Listen, follow and subscribe at https://healthpodcastnetwork.com/show/the-handoff/