Project Summary:
This story is part of KXAN’s “Preventing Disaster” investigation, which initially published on May 15, 2024. The project follows a fatal car crash into an Austin hospital’s emergency room earlier that year. Our team took a broader look at safety concerns with that crash and hundreds of others across the nation – including whether medical sites had security barriers – known as bollards – at their entrances. Experts say those could stop crashes from happening.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Just over a week after KXAN was invited to testify at the Capitol, a bill to require crash-rated safety bollards at hospital entrances, sparked by our series of investigations, advanced unanimously out of committee Wednesday morning. It now goes to the full Senate for a vote — possibly early next week, according to the bill’s author.
“I think we’ll let that go to the floor,” Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee Chair Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, told the bill’s author, Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas. “Thank you and congratulations.”
The committee updated the bill before passing it to exempt rural hospitals, based on population size, and hospitals with existing bollards or crash-prevention systems. In a vote of 7-0, the amended version of Senate Bill 660 moved out of committee and is now one step closer to becoming law.
“We have addressed the concerns of hospitals who already have crash systems,” West said, “to hope this bill moves forward.”
The bill is fiercely opposed by the Texas Hospital Association. The group, which represents more than 85% of the state’s acute-care hospitals and health care systems, testified against the safety step, calling it “a one-size-fits-all mandate on a single industry.”
The Texas Nurses Association and Texas Medical Association have spoken positively about the bill. The head of the THA said he would “definitely be in support” of anything that would improve patient, physician and hospital safety.
“The safety of nurses and hospital staff should be the highest priority of any healthcare organization,” the TNA previously told us. “Any and all protections should be considered to ensure our healthcare providers can come to work with confidence that they are protected and working in a safe environment.”
KXAN began investigating after a drunk driver slammed into the ER lobby of St. David’s North Austin Medical Center on Feb. 13, 2024, killing herself and seriously injuring five others. Since 2014, we found more than 400 crashes at medical buildings nationwide and shared our findings with the committee.
In a statement after the vote, West said he was “pleased” that his bipartisan bill “sailed” out of committee.
“This bill will save the lives of Texans and add to the safety of Texas hospitals,” West said in a statement. “I look forward to bringing this bill to the floor of the Senate early next week for Senate passage.”
