Interrupting Violence From Within the Trauma Unit and Well Beyond

This article highlights how MedStar Washington Hospital Center’s Community Violence Intervention Program (CVIP) is providing short- and long-term support to victims of violence, hoping to reduce the number of repeat visitors.

Medstar, the largest hospital in the D.C. area, is a not-for-profit, 912-bed academic medical center. Its violence intervention program, currently in the midst of a randomized controlled trial to gauge its effectiveness, is paid for in part by a grant from D.C.’s Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants.

The enhanced or experimental arm of the Medstar randomized controlled trial, following the template of other hospital-based violence intervention programs, both addresses patients’ immediate goals and emphasizes long-term relationships with patients, the community, and the resource centers patients might need.

The CVIP team has an overarching imperative: to keep their clients from being shot or stabbed or otherwise violently assaulted again. Their model is intensive, hands-on, individualized case management. The result, if done right, is an improvement in a host of risk factors that should reduce the patient’s risk of reinjury.

This article is part of a series on transforming health systems published with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.