State funds project aimed at reducing domestic violence

The project will educate emergency department physicians and nurses to identify domestic abuse injuries and train volunteer domestic violence advocates who will come to the hospital's emergency department to link women with community services before they leave the hospital. The project also will establish a 24-hour automated telephone help-line in English and Spanish that women can access from their homes.

Experts estimate that domestic violence accounts for 30 percent of the injuries women present within emergency departments in the U.S., yet without an established protocol, physicians have been found to identify only one abuse victim in 35. Studies have shown that battered women, if asked, almost always will admit they've been beaten, but research also reveals that physicians are uncomfortable with the topic, are afraid of the time involved and feel powerless to intervene.

The new project will try to overcome these barriers by training physicians to recognize possible domestic-violence injuries and by bringing volunteers into the emergency department to provide immediate intervention.

The goal, said Margo Krasnoff, UB associate professor of medicine and director of the project, is to show that in-hospital intervention in domestic-violence cases is a form of prevention that can decrease the number of women reinjured by their partners.

"We hope to increase identification of women who come to the emergency department suffering from domestic violence who might not have had the opportunity to discuss their situations with health-care providers," Krasnoff said."By having the domestic-violence advocate come right to the patient in the emergency department, we are demonstrating that we take this problem very seriously, and that we are concerned about the safety of our patients. We want to make sure they receive the help they need to prevent them from being injured again."

The project is an outgrowth of a collaborative effort among 12 Erie County hospitals to develop a unified approach to domestic violence. Krasnoff tested the concept at Millard Fillmore Health System's Gates Circle and Suburban hospitals, where the program is now in effect, before applying for the grant. A similar program exists at Sisters of Charity Hospital in Buffalo. In its third year, the project will be replicated in two more area hospitals.

Crisis Services, Inc., along with Krasnoff and Ron Moscati, UB clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine and project co-principal investigator, will train emergency department personnel. Crisis Services also will recruit, train and supervise volunteer advocates. UB departments of Internal Medicine and Psychiatry and the UB School of Law also will be involved in the project.