Virginia Enacts Law Requiring Reporting of Workplace Violence in Hospitals

Effective July 1, 2025, hospitals in Virginia will be required to establish a workplace violence incident reporting system pursuant to House Bill 2269. The system must “document, track, and analyze any incident of workplace violence reported” and the results must be used to “make improvements in preventing workplace violence.” The new law specifically requires that these improvements include continuing education—including de-escalation training—risk identification, and violence prevention planning. In addition, hospitals must clearly communicate the reporting system to all employees, including all new employees at orientation, and include guidelines on “when and how to report incidents of workplace violence to the employer, security agencies, and appropriate law-enforcement authorities.” Hospital employers must record all incidents voluntarily reported by an employee without any requirement to investigate the report for accuracy before recording it. 

Each record of a reported incident must be maintained for a minimum of two years and must, at a minimum include: 

1. The date and time of the incident;
2. A description of the incident, including the job title(s) of affected employee(s);
3. Whether the perpetrator was a patient, visitor, employee, or other person;
4. A description of where the incident occurred;
5. Information relating to the incident, including whether it involved a physical attack with or without a weapon or object, a threat of physical force or use of a weapon or other object with the intent to cause bodily harm, sexual assault or threat of sexual assault, or “anything else” not specifically enumerated;
6. The response to and any consequences of the incident, including whether security or law enforcement was contacted and, if so, their response and whether the incident resulted in a change to hospital policy; and
7. Information about the individual who completed the report, including name, job title, and date of completion. 

The data must be reported to the chief medical officer and the chief nursing officer of the hospital on a quarterly basis and, effective July 1, 2026, the hospital must send a report to the Department of Health on an annual basis with the number of incidents voluntarily reported by an employee. The law directs the State Board of Health to promulgate regulations as to the annual reporting of data to the Department of Health. 

The law also directs the Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources, in collaboration with other enumerated stakeholders, make recommendations to the governor and chairs of the Virginia House Committee on Health and Human Services and Senate Committee on Education and Health by November 1, 2025, on the type of data that should be collected and reported, other health care entities that should be subject to this system, and how the Virginia Department of Health would publicly share this data, among other factors.

The legislation broadly defines an “employee” to include healthcare providers credentialed by the hospital or engaged by the hospital to perform healthcare services on the premises of the hospital. 

Hospitals in Virginia should take steps to establish a workplace violence incident reporting system to comply with this upcoming change in the law and consult legal counsel to assist with instituting changes to comply with this law.