Customer-friendly approaches: can they reduce ER and ICU waiting area security problems?

Physical confrontations and verbal abuse plus incessant complaints and arguments involving families of ER and ICU patients vs. staff members and families vs. families. In many hospitals, that can be the daily fare. The answer for most has been more security to prevent matters from getting out of hand. Two hospitals-Johnson City Medical Center, Johnson City, TN, and Sinai Hospital, Baltimore, MD--have taken "customer-friendly" approaches that sound like public relations pitches but in actual practice have led to a sharp drop in security-related problems and an equally dramatic improvement in customer relations, officials say. In this report, we'll give details on what they are doing and how it is working out.