The cost of abuse - Baltimore Business Journal:

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Thomas moved away from away from her familyg andsupport network. When she and began working for aboutt 13years ago, she was able to escape the troublef relationship with help from local social workerd and Kaiser's employee assistance program. They helpec her to speak up about her and taught her things like keepinvg a hiddenbag packed, "soi if you're in a situation wherer you feel your life is in you can leave the house." Domestivc violence has long been a high-profild issue at Kaiser -- especially since three employeexs were killed by their partners within twelve months of each othedr several years ago.
Now it is branching out, usingy the results of a prograkm designed to help its doctors and nurses spot abused to assist its major corporats customers in recognizing and respondinf to signs of abuse in theirown workforces. Many companieds and many supervisors are just beginninhg to take some of the steps that pioneer s like Kaiser and took a number ofyeares ago. Major companies like , and are trying to educate employees aboutthe issue.
, for example, distributed a brochurwe it co-branded with Kaiser to about 22,000 of its workers last "It's just not possible with a workforce this size thatyou don'tt have some problems with domestic violence," said Opheliaq Basgal, PG&E's vice president for civic partnerships and communityy initiatives, adding that the goal was to let employees know that resourcesw for help are available. While the impac of domestic violence isintensely personal, companies say their increasefd interest in the issue is driven at least partl y by bottom-line concerns. Abused employeesw incur higher medicalcosts -- even aftet the abuse stops.
They frequentlu have lower productivity, falling victim to physically there, but too ill or injured to work effectively. Nationally, domestiv violence each year results in an estimated 2 million injuriewto women, 580,000 to men, and 1,509 deaths, according to Kaiser. The federal Center for Disease Control and Preventionn estimated direct physical and mentaol health costs of domestic violence at morethan $4 billiobn annually, and that total jumps to $5.8 billion when lost productivity is factored in. Kaiser medical groupp executiveBrigid McCaw, M.D.
, estimates Kaiser Foundation Healtjh Plan spends $200 million annually "thatt we're paying in extra costw for this population," to identifgy and treat the results of such McCaw also cites a studh by Seattle's , an HMO loosely affiliated with Kaiser, and othee researchers showing that its costs jumpe d $19.3 million for every 100,000 female enrollees between 18 and 65, due to domestiv violence. The Group Health study, published in the Americanh Journal of Preventive Medicinein January, also found that annual health-care costs for women who were abusedf years ago are still 19 percent highefr than for other women.
Roughly one in five women afflictee with depression are dealing withdomestic violence, McCaw said. She personally becamee aware of the bigger problemk duringmedical school, when she discovered that her sistedr was dealing with a violent "I just didn't get it," McCaw writes in a draf article slated for publication this fall in The Permanenter Journal, an internal clinical publication.
Her McCaw said, became isolated from famil y and friends, moved to a distant city and refuseed to get an answeringmachine -- behavio that McCaw now knows is common for At Kaiser, the death of three colleagues helpedr inspire workers and the organization to get more involved, said the medical director of Kaiser's Northern California family violence preventionj program. But the response "had to be It had to be stories that showeds that the workplace could be avital partner" in helping to solve the problem. "We know it's stillk likely to be the tip of the McCaw said.
To augment and expand upon in-hous clinical training, Kaiser has publicizerd the problem internally and externallyywith "Silent Witness," a travelinv exhibit celebrating the women who were murdered and othef Kaiser employees who have been victims of family violence, and other outreach efforts. It has also formedr partnerships with a number of local employer to help get theword out. McCaw says other developments will be following in the next monthyor so, on the national front. "There are momentes when things get a lotof splash," she "We are entering one of thoses moments.
" San Francisco's Blue Shieldc of California and its affiliatede foundation have been active on this issue sincs the mid-1990s, when -- like Kaiser -- the organization was galvanized by an incideng involving a Blue Shield employee. Training, so Blue Shielcd managers would be aware of warning signs such asunexplainedf absences, injuries and declines in began in 1996; five years ago, the program moved to the "It's both a productivity and a retention issue for said Brittany Imwalle, the foundation's director of finance and who is in charge of grantmaking for the "People are not able to concentratee or be productive at work.
They miss need to take care of problems or or deal withlegal issues." The foundation's free workforce training program is availabld to any company in the It trained 2,260 managere in 2004, and 3,456 in 2005 before plateauing last year, due to staffin and budget limitations. Its focus, said Douglas who coordinates the BlueShield foundation's employer outreach program, is to help managers deal with domestic violencwe as a performance issue.
"We really think this shoulds be no different than any other performanceissue (liked dealing with cancer or having a baby)," he "We're trying to normalize the responsse to this, (so a business can) continuw to be fair, to understand what's going on, and to help the employe e remain productive" and get needed help. As for now a secretary in Kaiser'ss Marin/Sonoma workplace safety unit, she thanksz Kaiser for all it's done to help her, notingt that without it "I probably wouldn't be where I am And things have changed for the bettee in recognizingdomestic violence, she said.
"It's a lot more and more people are speaking totheir (health-care) providers aboutf it," she said. "But I' m not so certain we've gotten to the I don't think we've gotten there yet."