A member of security, center right, stands at an emergency department entrance at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, Maine, in 2023. Maine is one of dozens of states that have enacted laws aimed at curbing violence in hospitals and clinics. (Photo by Steven Senne/The Associated Press)

One morning earlier this year, as Deb Capistrano came on duty for her shift as a nurse in her hospital’s stroke unit, her colleagues from the night shift warned her that one of her patients for the day was a man who’d been threatening to harm them.

Capistrano has been a registered nurse for 17 years. Threats of violence aren’t new to her. Across the nation, hospitals have become some of the most violent workplaces in America, where health care workers experience workplace violence at triple the rate

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