Closing the Nurse Safety Gap and Preventing Workplace Violence: An Open Letter from the Kontakt.io CEO
It’s been almost two weeks since nurses across New York City embarked on a massive, historic strike. One of their core concerns is safe working conditions, and it’s easy to see why: for years, nurses have experienced unacceptably high rates of violence, with 81% of nurses reporting being assaulted. At the same time, only 31.7% of nurses say their employer provides a clear way to report workplace-violence incidents; roughly two-thirds lack a well-defined safety response protocol at their hospital.
Safety is non-negotiable, especially for nurses, who are on the frontlines of any health crisis, be they individual surgeries or global pandemics. When safety is replaced by fear, no one benefits: nurses cannot perform at their best, and patients cannot heal.
This safety gap is unsustainable and unacceptable, but also solvable. Mobile duress buttons are the solution; today, nearly every American health system has either adopted these devices or is in the process of doing so, and for good reason. Duress buttons are a mature technology that has already proven its worth in dynamic, real-world care settings.
At Kontakt.io, we create smart duress buttons for nurses, enabling rapid response or de-escalation ahead of incidents. This means:
- Immediate, precise protection: Not only can nurses summon help in seconds, but help also arrives with 15 feet precision and 100% room accuracy.
- Real, tangible results: This includes a 60% reduction in response time to distress calls; location-aware alerts in under three seconds; and 80% of events resolved before escalation.
- Comprehensive safety with zero overhead: From patient rooms to parking garages, the Kontakt.io platform has them covered; plus, our platform is easy to set up and scale, and doesn’t use cabling or other intrusive installation methods.
- Operational and financial benefits: From faster responses to lower turnover, increased safety means a more efficient, healthier, and happier facility and staff.
The conclusion is simple: healthcare tech must empower caregivers, not burden them. The right system should remove clicks, shorten response times, and prevent chaos in favor of coordinated action. If technology doesn’t restore time and ensure safety for nurses, then it’s the wrong technology.
To nurses: we hear you, and we support the struggle for safe hospitals and environments; after all, safe staffing is impossible without safe conditions.
To hospital leaders: instead of another pilot, what about a baseline of safety with real, quantifiable metrics, such as faster response times, incident closure rates, and fewer injuries? Let’s bring a systematic approach to staff safety, making it both measurable and boringly dependable.
We’ll partner with any NYC hospital to implement a defensible, data-driven safety layer, one that’s fast, open, and reflective of frontline realities. Technology won’t end every incident, but it will shorten the distance between a cry for help and a calm room.
This is the floor on which better care is built.
