Health-Care Workplace Violence Rule Review to Start Next Month

The government will focus on protecting health-care workers from violent patients during a series of meetings between OSHA and small business representatives starting in mid-March.

The meetings are a mandatory step the Occupational Safety and Health Administration must take before the agency can issue a proposed workplace violence prevention rule for the health-care industry.

The agency began work on the rule in 2016 and has been under pressure by lawmakers and health-care unions to issue a standard. The Covid-19 pandemic became OSHA’s primary health-care issue in 2020, delaying progress on the workplace violence rule (RIN:1218-AD08).

OSHA has been ...