Senator Vitale helped create KidCare, a health insurance program for children and later sponsored the law to expand that coverage to families, in what became FamilyCare. He sponsored bills to improve patient safety in health care facilities including enhanced systems for reporting medical errors, restricting the use of forced overtime for nurses, requiring the use of safe needles and creating protocols for responding to public health emergencies.

The senator sponsored laws establishing the crimes of bias intimidation and harassment, providing financial support for catastrophically injured crime victims and protecting citizens from identify theft. He sponsored the law eliminating charitable immunity as a defense in child abuse sex cases, established the Department of Children and Families, and a 2017 law allowing pharmacies to dispense the anti-overdose medication Naloxone over the counter.

Senator Vitale is a founding member of the Middlesex County Habitat for Humanity. He is a member of the Governor's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, the Mandated Health Benefits Commission, the Foster and Adoptive Family Services Advisory Committee and the Staffing and Oversight Review Subcommittee of the Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect.

The Senator and his wife, Robin, have one daughter born in 2017.