Citation

Scannell M, Conso J. Nursing 2020; 50(5): 15-17.

Affiliation

At Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass., Meredith Scannell is a staff nurse in the Center for Clinical Investigation and in the ED, and Jonathan Conso is an ED staff nurse.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Springhouse)

DOI

10.1097/01.NURSE.0000657028.81053.2f

PMID

32332497

Abstract

EDs are the most common healthcare service utilized by human trafficking victims.1 One study found that 88% of human trafficking victims sought treatment in an ED while being trafficked, making emergency healthcare professionals key agents in helping these victims.2 Unfortunately, many healthcare professionals have had little education on human trafficking and miss many red flags.

One urban hospital sought to improve human trafficking education among its emergency staff by using a sexual assault simulation course, called the Sexual Assault Simulation Course for Healthcare Professionals (SASH). The hospital wanted to find out if the SASH course could help nurses identify victims of human trafficking, especially those who are being trafficked for sex exploitation. Developed by the primary author of this article, the course implemented human trafficking education with a focus on sex trafficking. Supported by an example from our hospital, this article discusses how the healthcare organization implemented SASH to educate its staff on human trafficking and describes postimplementation results.

Language: en