Hospitals: employee identification.

Assembly Member Patterson's hospital employee identification measure would establish uniform standards for name badges worn by staff who interact with patients at California's general acute care and acute psychiatric hospitals, excluding state-operated psychiatric facilities. The legislation requires hospitals to implement policies mandating identification tags that display both the employee's vocational classification or license status and their name in 18-point type or larger.

The bill provides hospitals flexibility in how employee names appear on identification badges, allowing for four display options: full first and last name, first name with last initial, first initial with last name, or single name only. This approach aims to balance professional identification requirements with employee privacy and safety considerations, particularly in psychiatric settings where existing law permits practitioners to forgo name tags due to security concerns.

Under the measure, hospitals must ensure all patient-facing employees comply with the identification requirements while on duty. The provisions would be enforced through existing hospital licensing regulations, with violations constituting a criminal offense under current health facility laws. The bill specifies that local agencies will not require state reimbursement for implementation costs, as the changes relate to crime classification under California's constitutional framework.