EPL Milestones and What’s Ahead in 2025

As we progress into 2025, we want to express our gratitude to everyone who supports and follows CRICO’s Employment Practices Liability (EPL) program. Your engagement has been instrumental in our growth and success. We’re excited to continue working together to tackle employment practices liability challenges and promote healthy, professional workplace environments.

Key Accomplishments and Roadmap

Rapid PULSE 360 Pilot Program Growth

• Participation in our Rapid PULSE 360 Pilot has exceeded expectations, with over 800 individuals from 10 institutions completing the PULSE survey
• In November, the CRICO Operations Committee approved expanding the program’s scope to include subscribers who do not purchase CRICO’s Association Liability (AL) coverage, enabling the entire Harvard medical community to benefit from this impactful initiative.
• To further support PULSE participants, we published the PULSE 360 Coaching Best Practices guide on our website to help participants maximize the program’s impact.

Monthly EPL Industry Insights

• We continue to post monthly industry insights to our website and social media accounts, sharing recent news and trends relevant to employment practices in health care organizations.

Educational Events

• In May, our second annual Association Liability (AL) Law Day brought together law firm partners, subscriber General Counsel, and Claims team members to explore emerging trends in Employment Practices Liability.
• In July, we hosted Keeping It Professional: Understanding Employment Practices Liability Risks, attended by over 70 health care professionals. The webinar featured real-world case examples of harassment and discrimination and provided actionable strategies for addressing unprofessional behavior.

The SmART Project

• The Smart Appropriate Response Training (SmART) Project, funded by CRICO, was created to help surgical residents respond effectively to sexual harassment situations. In November, we hosted a successful train the trainer session, preparing facilitators to deliver this essential training to their teams.

EPL Taxonomy Development

• Our EPL taxonomy, used to analyze harassment and discrimination trends among subscribers, continues to evolve. Our dataset now includes cases closed between 2015–2023, with initial coding completed for open cases. Key findings highlight the prevalence of allegations involving discrimination based on disability, race, and religion (predominantly vaccine-related cases) as well as allegations of retaliation.