House Healthcare Committee advances H.259 on hospital workplace-violence plans, softens budget-language for Green Mountain Care Board

The House Healthcare Committee voted to report H.259, a workplace-violence prevention bill for hospitals, favorably with amendments (version 3.1 pending editorial changes) after a markup session that included substantive debate over hospital budgeting language and operational requirements.

Committee members approved the bill by voice vote with a recorded tally reported as 10-0-1. The measure requires hospitals to establish and implement security plans, create incident-reporting systems, adopt anti-retaliation policies for reporters and submit related cost information to the Green Mountain Care Board as part of budget filings. The committee amended language in Section 4 so that the Green Mountain Care Board "shall take into consideration the costs associated with implementing a security plan pursuant to 19 11 b of this title" rather than requiring the board to "allocate sufficient funds."

The change to the Green Mountain Care Board language drew the most discussion. Katie, legislative counsel with the Office of Legislative Council, walked the committee through the amendment and read the proposed replacement language: "individual hospital budgets established under this section shall take into consideration the costs associated with implementing a security plan pursuant to 19 11 b of this…