The House Labor & Workplace Standards Committee received testimony on House Bill 1162, which would expand requirements for workplace‑violence prevention plans in specified health care settings and require more frequent investigations, reporting, and updates to safety plans.

Staff briefed the committee that the bill—focused on hospitals, hospice and home‑care agencies, evaluation and treatment facilities, and community mental health agencies—would require a timely investigation of every workplace‑violence incident, an assessment of contributing factors, quarterly reports to safety or workplace violence committees (twice yearly for critical access hospitals), and annual updates to prevention plans rather than the current three‑year cycle.

Rep. Levitt, the bill’s prime sponsor, said the measure reflects work by the Washington State Nurses Association and the Washington State Hospital Association and is aimed at protecting workers and strengthening retention by making plans “living documents” that learn from incidents. Witnesses from the Washington State Nurses Association described rising workplace‑violence reporting and urged passage. Jessica Hoffe, director of government affairs for WSNA, said reporting of events causing serious harm or death rose 41% through the third quarter of 2024; she warned the year‑end figure could near a 90% increase if trends continued.

Hospital representatives expressed support for the bill’s goals but requested changes. Remi Kerr of the Washington State Hospital Association said hospitals had worked with sponsors to make the bill workable and asked that personally identifiable information be de‑identified in reports in compliance with state and federal privacy laws (not only HIPAA), that the effective date be delayed to Jan. 1, 2026 to allow implementation time, and that some facilities be allowed to submit a summary rather than a full report each quarter.

MultiCare’s Kalei Trenum said workplace‑violence episodes vary in severity and requested a triage approach so that incidents causing physical harm receive more robust investigation than lower‑severity verbal threats, to avoid onerous administrative burdens that could reduce time for patient care.

Individual nurses testified about discouraged reporting, dissolved safety committees, and the retention impacts of workplace violence. Mariah Robinson, a nurse at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, told the committee that hospital leadership at her facility discouraged incident reporting and that engagement in an annual safety survey dropped from about 2,000 nurses to roughly 200 after those dynamics took hold.

The committee took no final action and closed the hearing after receiving testimony and amendment requests to clarify privacy, timing, and reporting scope.