Boundaries in the workplace

Employees in all health care settings are vulnerable to violations of boundaries: crossing that sometimes blurry line drawn between staff and patient. Accepting gifts, financial transactions, and romantic entanglement could lead to various negative consequences for the agency, staff, and patients. Supervisors need to be aware of early warning signs of boundary violations as well as training issues. The authors outline a successful program for addressing these issues and argue for rehabilitating the chronic boundaries violator.