Information about the Systemwide Working Group
The planning process to form a clinical enterprise Working Group began in early 2019. The cross-functional group, which includes representation from the Academic Senate, will build on learnings from prior sexual violence and sexual harassment policy work across the educational enterprise. The Working Group will focus on understanding current policies in UC’s clinical locations and recommending improvements for prevention, detection and response handling.
The Working Group is charged with the following responsibilities, some of which are already underway:
- Develop a Presidential policy on sexual misconduct in the clinical setting that addresses the unique circumstances in that setting. The policy should address education and training, credentialing and due diligence, and other prevention and identification requirements such as minimum standards for chaperone policies
- Develop a model formal incident response plan for adoption at each clinical site to ensure appropriate actions, reports, and escalations in response to allegations of sexual misconduct by providers
- Recommend changes to relevant University policies to more explicitly state expectations for conduct in the clinical setting by all members of the University community and to define expectations for leadership in response to allegations of misconduct in that setting
- Recommend ways to enhance education and training aimed specifically at the clinical setting
- Conceptualize and launch a system wide “just culture”/“speak up” campaign to encourage stakeholders at all levels of the organization to effectively escalate patient safety concerns wherever they arise, with specific but not exclusive focus on sexual misconduct
- Expand and formalize detection capabilities by, for example, developing guidance to identify and respond to red flags and by making it easier for patients to report their concerns
- Issue formal guidance on interim measures that can be implemented immediately at every level of the clinical enterprise – department, medical group, medical staff, and campus – in response to allegations of sexual misconduct, even before any investigation has been completed