Status: Enacted — Signed into law in 2023; effective July 1, 2023. A 2025 expansion vehicle (SB 419) passed the Senate 42-7 but did not advance in the House and is expected to be reintroduced.

Bill Number: Indiana HEA 1021 (House Enrolled Act 1021, 2023 session); related vehicle SB 419 (2025) carried forward in subsequent sessions.

Jurisdiction: Indiana

Category: Healthcare Workplace Violence (Criminal Deterrence)

Industries: Healthcare

Enacted Date: 2023 session

Effective Date: July 1, 2023

Summary: Indiana HEA 1021 amends the Indiana Code to include all staff members of a hospital emergency department within the definition of "public safety official," extending the elevated criminal penalties for battery and intimidation already available when those offenses are committed against police, firefighters, and other public safety personnel. The expanded definition reaches nurses, physicians, technicians, aides, environmental services staff, and other support personnel working in a hospital emergency department. Before HEA 1021, battery against most healthcare staff was charged as a Class B or Class A misdemeanor; the law elevates the offense to a Level 6 felony when committed against an ED worker performing their duties, and to a Level 5 felony if the act results in bodily injury or involves placing bodily fluids or waste on the worker. Intimidation against the same class of workers is charged as a Level 5 felony when the threat relates to the worker's status as a healthcare provider.

HEA 1021 sits inside Indiana's broader pattern of healthcare-protection legislation championed by the Indiana Hospital Association under its Safe and Sound initiative. The 2025 follow-up bill, SB 419, would have extended the same protections beyond the emergency department to all hospital and outpatient healthcare workers; it passed the Senate 42-7 but did not move in the House. Hospital and physician associations are expected to reintroduce a version of SB 419 in subsequent sessions.

Key Provisions:

Extends "public safety official" status to all hospital emergency department staff, triggering elevated battery and intimidation penalties.
Battery against an ED worker: Level 6 felony (six months to 2.5 years); Level 5 felony if bodily injury results or bodily fluids/waste are placed on the worker (one to six years).
Intimidation: Level 5 felony when the threat relates to the worker's status as a healthcare provider.
Operates as a deterrence statute — does not impose direct prevention-program or recordkeeping obligations on hospital operators.

Affected Entities: Indiana hospitals operating emergency departments and the staff who work in those departments. The law does not directly require hospitals to implement workplace violence prevention programs or maintain incident logs, but the elevated penalty structure increases the operational value of contemporaneous incident documentation that prosecutors rely on to charge the felony offenses.

IntelliSee Relevance: Moderate. HEA 1021 is a criminal deterrence statute, not a prevention or recordkeeping mandate, so it does not on its own require Indiana hospitals to deploy detection technology. However, prosecutions under the elevated felony framework will turn on contemporaneous evidence of the assault — the time, location, and conduct of the assailant. IntelliSee's AI-powered continuous monitoring of existing camera infrastructure — including AI weapon detection, fall detection, and aggressive-behavior detection — produces time-stamped, location-tagged records that strengthen the evidentiary record any felony prosecution requires. For Indiana health systems, the platform pairs the deterrence layer HEA 1021 creates with the operational detection layer the Joint Commission's NPG 2a workplace violence standard expects.

Indiana Healthcare Worker Protection Law (HEA 1021)

Related Legislation & Resources

Turn Legislative Mandates Into a Working Safety Program