Oregon SB 537 Requirements: What Healthcare Leaders Should Know

Oregon Senate Bill 537 expanded healthcare workplace violence prevention requirements—and meeting the initial requirements may not be the last update your organization needs to make. With Oregon Health Authority (OHA) rules already in effect and Oregon OSHA proposing additional provisions, healthcare leaders have reason to revisit their programs now.

The law addresses how employers assess risks, train employees, respond to violence and support affected staff, including employees providing care in patients’ homes. The next phase of rulemaking could require further changes to incident recordkeeping, review and training.

For leaders, the priority is understanding what applies today, what could change next and whether existing procedures give staff a dependable way to get help. Here’s what to review and how to prepare.

What Does Oregon SB 537 Require?

OHA’s implementing rule package became effective February 1, 2026, with specified flagging and home-care safety provisions taking effect May 1, 2026. These dates apply to the OHA rules, rather than establishing a single start date for all SB 537 obligations. The following highlights key requirements to review with your compliance team and counsel.

Core Responsibilities Across Covered Settings

Under SB 537, hospitals (excluding Oregon State Hospital), ambulatory surgical centers, home health agencies and home hospice programs must take the following steps to prevent workplace violence and support employees:

• Assess Risks and Implement a Response Plan. Conduct periodic safety assessments and implement a workplace violence prevention and response plan in consultation with the workplace safety committee.
• Train Employees. Provide annual training, including for contracted security personnel working on-site. Train new employees within 90 days and temporary employees within 14 days.
• Share the Plan. Give employees and, if applicable, their union representatives the written plan and a statement explaining protection from retaliation for reporting workplace violence. New hires must receive the plan and statement within 30 calendar days.
• Plan for Post-Incident Support. Establish investigation procedures and response strategies addressing medical care and trauma counseling.
• Review the Program Annually. Work with the safety committee to evaluate effectiveness and consider necessary changes.

Responsibilities by Care Setting

In addition to these shared responsibilities, hospitals, home health agencies and home hospice programs must address safety requirements specific to their care environments, including the following provisions in OHA’s adopted rules:

• Hospitals: Implement electronic and visual flagging systems to communicate potential safety threats, supported by staff training, flag reviews and patient safeguards. Meet applicable bullet-resistant construction requirements for emergency-department intake areas when undertaking qualifying construction or renovation projects.
• Home Health Agencies and Home Hospice Programs: Assess intake risks, share relevant safety information with assigned staff, provide annual personnel safety training and conduct quarterly safety assessments. Provide safety-check mechanisms, establish procedures allowing charting outside the home and escorts when safety concerns exist and implement flagging systems.
• Ambulatory Surgical Centers: Follow the core prevention-program requirements outlined above. Hospital-specific provisions have separate applicability and should not automatically be treated as requirements for surgical centers.

What Would Oregon OSHA’s Proposed Rules Change?

Even healthcare organizations that have met applicable requirements under SB 537 and OHA’s adopted rules may need to make further updates. Oregon OSHA has proposed rules that would incorporate existing obligations and add specific requirements for incident recordkeeping, review and training. Oregon OSHA’s July 21, 2026, update listed an August 31 public-comment deadline, tentative adoption in October 2026 and an anticipated January 2027 effective date. Final requirements and timing remain subject to change.

The proposed rule text would:

• Incorporate Existing Prevention Requirements. Bring responsibilities for written plans, annual reviews and onboarding into a dedicated OSHA rule. These obligations already exist under SB 537.
• Expand Incident Recordkeeping Beyond Assaults. Replace the healthcare assault log with a workplace violence incident log, or equivalent, covering harassment, intimidation and threats of physical violence alongside physical incidents.
• Specify Incident Assessment Procedures. Build on SB 537’s existing assessment requirements by expressly requiring assessments of all workplace violence incidents and review of completed assessments with the safety committee or through permitted safety meetings.
• Require Retraining When Circumstances Change. Supplement annual training with retraining for affected employees—including temporary staff and contracted security personnel—when the prevention program changes or workplace conditions necessitate it.
• Reflect Existing Reporting Protections in OSHA Rules. Explicitly include good-faith reporting of workplace violence in the discrimination-complaint rule, reflecting protections already established under SB 537.

How Can Healthcare Employers Prepare—and Assess Their Current System?

Start by comparing the proposed changes with your incident forms, review procedures and training schedule. Identify potential updates with compliance, nursing, security and the safety committee and assign someone to monitor the final rules. Then evaluate whether your response process works for the people who depend on it.

Does Oregon SB 537 Require Panic Buttons?

Although SB 537 does not expressly mandate panic buttons, they can help employees put a response plan into action by making it easier to request help. OSHA’s 2016 healthcare workplace violence prevention guidelines recommend considering panic buttons and wearable personal alarms based on the risks identified in each workplace.

Choosing an appropriate option starts with understanding where and how employees need help. A nurse moving between patient rooms may need a different activation method than a receptionist at a workstation. For home healthcare staff, the evaluation must also account for off-site connectivity, available assistance and a separate provision in Oregon law, ORS 654.421(2), which allows an employee to refuse to treat a patient unless equipped with a communication device capable of transmitting a message indicating an assault. That provision does not specify a particular panic-button product.

Employee feedback can turn these considerations into practical selection criteria. Ask staff where they feel isolated, which tasks make calling for help difficult and what they need responders to know. Use their examples in drills that follow the request through acknowledgment and arrival, then evaluate:

• Access: Would a wearable, fixed button or application make assistance easier to request during the employee’s work?
• Location and Routing: Can responders find the employee, and does the alert reach the appropriate team for that shift?
• Escalation: Who takes over if the first responder is unavailable, and when should mass communications provide broader instructions?
• Reliability: Does the solution work throughout the intended coverage area, and have staff practiced the full response?

Use these criteria to compare staff duress systems against your organization’s response needs and involve employees in testing. A delivered alert does not tell you whether anyone accepted responsibility or reached the employee. Test through acknowledgment and arrival, then use staff feedback to identify what would make the next response more dependable.

Give Your Staff a Clear Path to Help

As Oregon’s requirements evolve, use this moment to strengthen the response your employees depend on. Every gap you identify is an opportunity to make help easier to request, give responders clearer direction and show staff that their safety concerns lead to action.

911Cellular connects duress options, incident management and mass communications to help healthcare teams turn an employee’s request for assistance into a coordinated response.

See how it could work in your organization. Explore how staff can activate alerts, how responders receive them and how your team can coordinate what happens next with the 911Cellular Safety Platform.

This article provides general information and operational recommendations, not legal advice or a determination of compliance. Consult current official sources and qualified counsel about requirements applicable to your organization. Purchasing or using a safety system does not by itself establish compliance.