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For a plugin I'm using I have to have a state that looks like this:

getInitialState() {
  return {
    invalid: true,
    access: {
      access_code: '',
      zipcode: '',
      password: '',
      confirm: '',
      hospital_id: '',
    },
  }
},

How would I set the state of hospital_id without setting the rest of access?

This seems to remove everything but hospital_id:

this.setState({access: {hospital_id: 1}})

Answers

You have a few options:

1. With ECMA6, you can use the Object spread proposal (...) to create copies of objects with updated properties.

   this.setState({
     access: {
       ...this.state.access,
       hospital_id: 1,
     },
   });
   

2. You can use the native assign function on the Object (Object.assign())

   this.setState({
     access: Object.assign({}, this.state.access, {
       hospital_id: 1,
     }),
   });
   

3. Or for the shortest version and atomic update:

    this.setState(({access}) => ({access: {
      ...access,
      hospital_id: 1,
    }});
   

4. And one more option is the updates addon:

   var update = require('react-addons-update');
   // per React docs 
   // https://reactjs.org/docs/update.html 
   // , you may want to change this to 
   // import update from 'immutability-helper';
   this.setState({
     access: update(this.state.access, {
       hospital_id: {$set: 1},
     })
   });
   

I would recommend using the first one.