Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act

Enhanced Worker Safety: The bill requires covered employers to develop and implement a comprehensive workplace violence prevention plan to protect health care and social service workers (Section 101(a)(1)(A)).

Meaningful Employee Involvement: Plans must be developed with the meaningful participation of direct care employees and their representatives (Section 103(1)(A)(i)).

Tailored Protection: Prevention plans must be specific to the unique conditions, hazards, and patient-specific risk factors of a particular facility or service (Section 103(1)(A)(ii)).

Comprehensive Risk Management: Employers are required to perform risk assessments that include environmental risk factors and patient-specific risks (Section 103(1)(B)(ii)).

Improved Response and Support: The standard requires procedures for incident response, providing medical care or first aid, and offering information about available trauma and related counseling (Section 103(1)(B)(iv)).

Mandatory Training: Employers must provide annual training and education to employees exposed to violence risks, including information on the plan and anti-retaliation policies (Section 103(3)(A)).

Protection Against Retaliation: Employers are required to adopt policies prohibiting discrimination or retaliation against employees for reporting violence or seeking assistance (Section 103(8)).

Increased Administrative Requirements: Employers must maintain various records, such as violent incident logs and annual summaries, for at least five years (Section 103(4)(A)(i) and 103(4)(B)(v)).

Mandatory Reporting Obligations: Employers are required to submit annual summaries of incident logs to the Secretary (Section 103(4)(C)(i)).

Financial/Compliance Burden for Medicare Facilities: Certain hospitals and skilled nursing facilities that are not otherwise subject to the Occupational Safety and Health Act must comply with the new standard to receive Medicare funds (Section 201(a)(1)).