Health Professions. The Department of Health (DOH) certifies, licenses, and regulates health professions in Washington State. Some of these health professions have their own governing boards, commissions, or advisory committees, such as the Washington Medical Commission (WMC). WMC regulates licenses for physician assistants, physicians, and surgeons in Washington State. WMC establishes, monitors, and enforces qualifications for licensure, consistent standards of practice and continuing competency.
 
Most disciplining authorities do not collect demographic information from licensees, upon initial licensure or renewal. WMC, however, is required to collect demographic data on physicians and physician assistants at the time of license renewal. The information may include practice setting, medical specialty, board certification, or other relevant data determined by WMC. WMC's form for submitting this information requests information on race, ethnicity, gender, spoken language, and specialty.
 
School District Reporting. All school districts in Washington must submit student-level data to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI). Reporting must comply with federal race and ethnicity reporting guidelines, and include the subracial and subethnic categories within those guidelines with the following modifications:

• disaggregate the Black category to differentiate students of African origin and students native to the United States with African ancestors;
• disaggregate countries of origin for Asian students;
• disaggregate the White category to include subethnic categories for Eastern European nationalities that have significant populations in Washington; and
• for students who report as multiracial, collection of their racial and ethnic combination of categories.

Student data-related reports required of OSPI must be disaggregated by certain ethnic and racial categories, including White, Black, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian, and Pacific Islander/Hawaiian Native.

All applicants for licensure on or after January 1, 2025, must provide the following information with their application:

• race;
• ethnicity;
• gender;
• languages spoken;
• provider specialty, where applicable;
• primary practice location, if known at the time of application; and
• secondary practice location, if applicable and if known at the time of application.

 
All license holders must provide the following information when they renew their licenses on or after January 1, 2025, in addition to any other information required by the relevant disciplining authority:

• the demographic information required with initial licensure application, except, after license holders provide this information one time, they must be required to provide only changes to this information with subsequent renewals;
• whether the licensee is currently practicing;
• primary practice location at the time of renewal; and
• secondary practice location at the time of renewal, if applicable.

 
The demographic information form must include the same race and ethnicity categories and subgroups required for the collection of student-level data.

DOH may not sell the information collected from license applications and license renewals.

These requirements do not apply to health professionals licensed by WMC.

• Prohibits DOH from ever selling information collected about health professionals from license applications or license renewals.

The committee recommended a different version of the bill than what was heard. PRO: Washington currently lacks comprehensive demographic information on health professionals licensed in the state. This information is necessary for understanding the racial and ethnic diversity in our health profession workforce. Having access to this information is important for referring patients to diverse providers that they trust, and that understand the patient's background. This is an important health equity measure to increase treatment and acceptance.