Building a culture of safety
University of Michigan Health-Sparrow partnered with Canopy to transform workplace safety; moving from reactive measures to a proactive culture where staff feel protected, not monitored.
Results at a glance
Voluntary adoption rate among 1,400+ employees
Response time for first live incident
Voluntary adoption rate among 1,400+ employees
Addressing the Silent Weight of Workplace Safety in Healthcare.
At the University of Michigan Health-Sparrow, a premier Level 1 Trauma Center, workplace violence was taking its toll on frontline staff. Beyond the physical risks, clinicians felt isolated during high-pressure patient interactions. Existing safety tools, fixed panic buttons, and phone-based protocols required staff to step away from critical moments to seek help.
Any solution had to navigate a delicate cultural landscape: staff were protective of their privacy and wary of technology perceived as "tracking." The challenge was clear: how do you create a healthcare safety system that builds trust with staff as much as it provides protection?
"Within an hour and a half of us deploying the badges, we had an incident... it was unbelievable that this worked this fast, that quickly, and we wanted everybody in the organization to know."
The impact
Real results. Immediate validation. Industry recognition.
Within the first 90 minutes of launch, the system successfully de-escalated a violent encounter with security arriving in under 45 seconds. This real-world validation quickly dismantled initial skepticism. Today, over 95% of staff have voluntarily adopted the badges.
The Joint Commission validated this comprehensive approach by citing the program as an "industry best practice", a testament to what's achievable when safety technology is implemented with empathy and professional respect.
"We knew we couldn't eliminate workplace violence entirely, but we could certainly prevent the harm coming to our team members. We wanted them to feel empowered, not monitored. Once we rolled it out, you could feel the shift—they finally felt safer."
