Illinois General Assembly - Bill Status for HB0399

Creates the Health Care Setting Violence Prevention Act. Requires health care settings, including hospitals, mental health evaluation and treatment facilities, community mental health programs, home health agencies, and hospice programs, by July 1, 2006, to adopt and implement a plan to reasonably prevent and protect employees from violence at the setting. Requires a health care setting to file copies of its plan, and copies of changes to the plan, with the Department of Labor and the Department of Human Services. Requires a review of the plan at least once every 3 years. Requires health care settings to provide violence prevention training to employees by July 1, 2007. Requires health care settings to keep records of violent acts against an employee, a patient, or a visitor and to forward copies of such records to the Department of Labor and the Department of Human Services. Provides for enforcement of the Act by the Department of Labor, and authorizes the Director of Labor to issue an order for correction to a health care setting fixing a time for abatement of a violation. Amends the Illinois State Auditing Act. Requires that the Auditor General's audits of certain mental health and developmental disabilities facilities under the jurisdiction of the Department of Human Services include their records concerning reports of suspected abuse of facility staff by facility residents or patients. Effective immediately.

Replaces everything after the enacting clause. Creates the Health Care Workplace Violence Prevention Act. Defines "health care workplace" to mean a hospital licensed under the Hospital Licensing Act or organized under the University of Illinois Hospital Act, or a mental health facility or developmental disability facility as defined in the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Code. Provides that by July 1, 2006, every health care workplace must adopt and implement a plan to reasonably prevent and protect employees from violence at that setting. Requires a health care workplace to file the plan with the Department of Labor, and requires that Department to forward a copy of the plan to the State agency that regulates the workplace or contracts with the workplace for the delivery of health care services. Requires a health care workplace to provide violence prevention training to its employees by July 1, 2007. Requires a health care workplace to keep a record of violent acts occurring at the workplace and to report those violent acts to the Department of Labor for forwarding to the appropriate regulatory agency; also requires a health care workplace to report such violent acts to the appropriate law enforcement agency. In the case of a report of a violent act occurring at a State-operated mental health or developmental disability facility under the jurisdiction of the Department of Human Services (DHS), requires the Department of Labor to forward a copy of the report to the Department of State Police and to the DHS Inspector General. Authorizes the Director of Labor to order a health care workplace to comply with the Act and to impose a civil penalty against a health care workplace. Provides that a hospital shall be deemed to be in compliance with the violence prevention plan requirements if it has complied with national accreditation standards and completes reports of incidents of violence that are available for review by the Department of Public Health. Amends the Illinois State Auditing Act to require that the program audit of State-operated mental health and developmental disability facilities include an examination of reports of suspected abuse of facility staff by patients or residents. Amends the Community Living Facilities Licensing Act, the Hospital Licensing Act, and the Community-Integrated Living Arrangements Licensure and Certification Act to authorize sanctions against a licensed entity for a violation of the Health Care Workplace Violence Prevention Act. Effective immediately.

Replaces everything after the enacting clause with provisions substantially similar to those of House Bill 399 as amended by House Amendment No. 1, but with changes that include the following: (1) provides that "abuse" also means a perceived immediate, threatened, or impending risk of physical injury; (2) deletes hospitals from the definition of "health care workplace", and provides that "health care workplace" does not include, and shall not be construed to include, any office of a physician licensed to practice medicine in all its branches, an advanced practice nurse, or a physician assistant, regardless of the form of such office; (3) provides that violence prevention training must address the protection of confidentiality in accordance with HIPAA and other related provisions of law; (4) eliminates "a physical assault with mild soreness, surface abrasions, scratches, or small bruises" as a type of abuse that must be described; (5) eliminates provisions for reporting violent acts to the Department of Labor and for the investigation of such violent acts; (6) eliminates provisions for issuance of an order to comply with the Health Care Workplace Violence Prevention Act and for a civil penalty for noncompliance; (7) eliminates provisions concerning circumstances under which a hospital shall be deemed to be in compliance with the Act; (8) amends the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Administrative Act to require the Department of Human Services, within 6 months after the effective date of this amendatory Act, to adopt rules prescribing procedures for reporting, investigating, and responding to violent acts against employees of facilities under the Department's jurisdiction; (9) eliminates failure to file a review of or changes to a workplace violence prevention plan and failure to report a violent act under the Health Care Workplace Violence Prevention Act as grounds for discipline under the Community Living Facilities Licensing Act and the Community-Integrated Living Arrangements Licensure and Certification Act; and (10) eliminates provisions amending the Hospital Licensing Act. Effective immediately.

In the Health Care Workplace Violence Prevention Act, deletes the definition of "abuse" and replaces references to "abuse" in the Act with references to "violent acts". Provides that "violence" or "violent act" means any act by a patient or resident (instead of a person) that causes or threatens to cause an injury to another person (instead of causes abuse of another person). Adds "a violent act requiring employee response, in the course of which an employee is injured" as a type of violent act that must be included in a health care workplace's records, and changes another such category to "a verbal or physical threat that presents imminent danger" (instead of imminent danger to an employee). In the Illinois State Auditing Act, (i) requires examination of a facility's records concerning reports of violent acts against (instead of suspected abuse of) facility staff by patients or residents and (ii) requires the Auditor General to report findings concerning violent acts against staff by patients or residents (instead of concerning abuse of facility staff).

Replaces everything after the enacting clause with provisions similar to those of House Bill 399, as amended by Senate Amendment No. 1, creating the Health Care Workplace Violence Prevention Act and amending the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Administrative Act, the Illinois State Auditing Act, the Community Living Facilities Licensing Act, and the Community-Integrated Living Arrangements Licensure and Certification Act, but with changes that include the following: (1) deletes references to the Department of Labor and the Director of Labor and replaces them with references to the Department of Human Services (in the case of a health care workplace that is operated or regulated by the Department of Human Services) or the Department of Public Health (in the case of a health care workplace that is operated or regulated by the Department of Public Health); (2) requires the Department of Human Services and the Department of Public Health to initially implement the Health Care Workplace Violence Prevention Act as a 2-year pilot project in which only the following health care workplaces shall participate: the Chester Mental Health Center, the Alton Mental Health Center, the Douglas Singer Mental Health Center, the Andrew McFarland Mental Health Center, and the Jacksonville Developmental Center; (3) requires facilities participating in the pilot project to provide violence prevention training by July 1, 2006, and to adopt and implement a workplace violence prevention plan and begin keeping a record of violent acts by July 1, 2007; (4) requires facilities not participating in the pilot project to adopt and implement a workplace violence prevention plan by July 1, 2008 (instead of 2006), provide violence prevention training by July 1, 2009 (instead of 2007), and begin keeping a record of violent acts by July 1, 2008 (instead of 2006); and (5) requires the Governor to convene a task force to evaluate the pilot project and make a report to the General Assembly by January 1, 2008. Effective immediately.

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