Status: Enacted — Signed by Governor Mike DeWine on January 8, 2025. Key provisions effective April 9, 2025.
Bill Number: OH HB 452 (135th General Assembly, “Healthcare Workplace Safety Act”)
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Category: Healthcare Workplace Violence
Industries: Healthcare
Enacted Date: January 8, 2025 (Governor Mike DeWine)
Effective Date: April 9, 2025
What Ohio's Healthcare Workplace Safety Act (HB 452) Requires
Ohio House Bill 452, the Healthcare Workplace Safety Act, establishes workplace violence prevention requirements for hospitals across the state. Sponsored by Representative Andrea White and Representative Rachel Baker, the bill cleared the General Assembly with broad bipartisan support and was signed by Governor Mike DeWine on January 8, 2025. Key provisions took effect on April 9, 2025. The Ohio Department of Health is the administering agency.
HB 452 requires every Ohio hospital to develop and implement a comprehensive written workplace violence and security plan that identifies, prevents, and reduces the risks of workplace violence. The plan must address strategies for incident management and risk management and must require at least one hospital employee trained in de-escalation practices to be present at all times in the hospital's emergency department and psychiatric department, where those departments exist. Annual training for all hospital staff on recognizing, reporting, and responding to workplace violence is mandatory. Hospitals must track and report workplace violence incidents annually and submit findings to regulatory bodies, and warning notices that aggressive behavior toward healthcare workers will not be tolerated must be visibly posted throughout each facility.
The legislation also requires hospitals to adopt a policy prohibiting retaliation against staff who report violent incidents, and it provides civil immunity for healthcare workers who act in self-defense or defense of others during violent incidents under certain circumstances.
Who Must Comply
HB 452 applies to all hospitals in Ohio, including general acute-care hospitals, psychiatric facilities, and the emergency departments and psychiatric departments operated within them. The de-escalation-trained staff requirement applies in those high-risk settings around the clock. Hospital executives, facility administrators, and safety officers bear primary responsibility for developing and implementing compliant violence prevention programs. The Ohio Department of Health oversees compliance and reviews incident reports.
How IntelliSee Supports Compliance
IntelliSee directly supports the engineering control, hazard-identification, and incident-documentation requirements of Ohio HB 452 by providing AI-powered threat detection that monitors hospitals around the clock. The platform's AI weapon detection identifies visible firearms in emergency departments, behavioral health units, patient waiting areas, and facility entrances — alerting security teams in real time before a situation escalates to violence and complementing the de-escalation-trained staff that HB 452 requires.
IntelliSee's fall detection adds an additional layer of patient safety, automatically identifying falls in hallways, patient rooms, and common areas and notifying staff immediately. This capability is especially valuable in long-term care and behavioral health settings where fall-related injuries are a major safety concern.
The platform operates without facial recognition, ensuring compatibility with HIPAA requirements and patient privacy standards. IntelliSee's 24/7 autonomous monitoring directly addresses the staffing gaps that Ohio hospitals face — particularly during nights, weekends, and holidays when security coverage is thinnest. The system works with existing security cameras, requiring no new hardware installation, and provides the continuous, time-stamped incident records that HB 452's annual reporting requirements demand.
Related Legislation & Resources
- The Joint Commission Workplace Violence Prevention Requirements (NPG 2a)
- New York Hospital Violence Prevention Program Act (S5294-B / A203-B)
- Washington Healthcare Workplace Violence Prevention (HB 1162)
- California Workplace Violence Prevention (SB 553)
- Kentucky Healthcare Workplace Safety (HB 176)
- Kentucky Healthcare Workplace Violence Prevention Refinement (HB 713)
- IntelliSee for Healthcare
- AI Gun Detection
- Fall Detection