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Texas has a Reporting Workplace Violence law, which requires all employers regardless of size to post a notice informing employees of the contact information for reporting incidents of workplace violence or suspicious activity to the state Department of Public Safety. The notice must be printed in English and Spanish and must be posted in a conspicuous place.
Texas has also passed a Workplace Violence Prevention law for health care facilities. Included in this are agencies licensed to provide home health services; hospitals; nursing facilities; ambulatory surgery centers; emergency medical care facilities; and mental hospitals. Covered employers must provide the following:
- A workplace violence prevention committee made up of at least one registered nurse who provides direct patient care at the facility; one licensed physician who provides direct patient care; and one employee who provides security services for the facility, if any. The committee must develop the facility’s workplace violence prevention plan.
- A workplace violence prevention policy that must:
- Evaluate any existing facility violence prevention plan;
- Encourage health care providers to provide information on workplace violence to the safety committee;
- Include a process to protect workers who provide information on workplace violence from retaliation;
- Comply with rules related to workplace violence established by the state Health and Human Services Commission.
- A written workplace violence prevention plan that must:
- Be based on the practice setting;
- Adopt a definition of workplace violence that includes:
- An act or threat of physical force against a health care provider or employee that results in, or is likely to result in, physical injury or psychological trauma;
- An incident involving the use of a firearm or other dangerous weapon, regardless of whether a health care provider or employee is injured by the weapon;
- Require the facility to provide annual workplace violence prevention training to any employees who provide direct patient care;
- Implement a system for responding to and investigating violent incidents or potentially violent incidents at the facility;
- Address physical security and safety;
- Include input from health care providers and employees when developing the safety plan;
- Allow health care providers and employees to report incidents of workplace violence through the facility's existing reporting systems; and
- Require the facility to adjust patient care assignments, to the extent practicable, to prevent a health care provider or employee of the facility from treating or providing services to a patient who has intentionally physically abused or threatened that provider or employee.
- An annual review of the workplace violence prevention plan, which must be provided to the governing body of the facility and to each health care provider and employee of the facility.
- Post-incident support for employees, including acute medical treatment needed.
A facility may not prevent employees from reporting incidents of workplace violence to law enforcement. Employees may not face disciplinary action, retaliation, or discrimination because of reporting incidents of workplace violence.