Requires adult care facilities to include quality improvment committees; includes a focus on infection control in such facilities' quality assurance plans.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A5846
SPONSOR: Kim TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the social services law, in relation to requiring adult
care facilities to include quality improvement committees and include a
focus on infection control in such facilities' quality assurance plans
PURPOSE:
To require adult care facilities to incorporate standards for infection
control in each facility's quality assurance plan and require such plans
to include a quality improvement committee.
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
This bill would require adult care facilities to include performance
standards for infection control in their quality assurance plans. This
bill would require each facility to have a quality improvement committee
to meet periodically to review the effectiveness of quality assurance
plans and improvement efforts. The committee(s) would include the facil-
ity's operator, the resident council or other resident representative,
and representatives from frontline employees.
JUSTIFICATION:
Adult care facilities (ACF) are homes that range from a few dozen resi-
dents to several hundred. Maintaining a quality assurance plan that
includes infection control standards is crucial to protect the health
and wellbeing of residents and employees.
This legislation directs ACFs to maintain infection control standards as
part of their current quality assurance plans. In addition, this legis-
lation requires such facilities to create quality improvement commit-
tees, with members representing aspects of the ACF community that may
provide unique and distinct insight into how to best protect the health
and wellbeing of a facility's residents, employees, and those outside
the facility that support them.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
New legislation.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None to the state.
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Ninetieth day after it becomes law.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
5846
2021-2022 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
February 26, 2021
___________
Introduced by M. of A. KIM -- read once and referred to the Committee on
Health
AN ACT to amend the social services law, in relation to requiring adult
care facilities to include quality improvement committees and include
a focus on infection control in such facilities' quality assurance
plans
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Paragraph (c) of subdivision 2 of section 461-a of the
2 social services law, as amended by chapter 735 of the laws of 1994, is
3 amended to read as follows:
4 (c) An inspection report shall be made of each inspection which shall
5 clearly identify and indicate in detail each area of operation, includ-
6 ing, but not limited to, the premises, equipment, personnel, resident
7 care and services, and whether each such area of operation or any of its
8 component parts is or is not in compliance with the regulations of the
9 department and all other applicable requirements. It also shall identify
10 those areas of operation or any of its component parts found not in
11 compliance as a result of failure in systemic practices and procedures.
12 The operator shall be notified of the results of the inspection in a
13 manner to be determined by regulations of the department. Such notifica-
14 tion shall contain directions as may be appropriate as to the manner and
15 time in which compliance with applicable requirements of law or regu-
16 lations of the department shall be effected. The department shall also
17 require the operator of an adult home or residence for adults to devel-
18 op, biannually update and implement plans for quality assurance activ-
19 ities for each area of operation. Quality assurance activities include
20 but are not limited to, development and maintenance of performance stan-
21 dards including infection control, measurement of adherence to such
22 standards and to applicable state and local laws and regulations, iden-
23 tification of performance failures, design, and implementation of
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD02902-05-1
A. 5846 2
1 corrective action. Each plan must also include the creation of a quali-
2 ty improvement committee that is charged with meeting periodically, at
3 least once every six months, to review summary findings from monitoring
4 implementation of the facility's plan, evaluating the effectiveness of
5 corrective action policies, and identifying trends and improvement
6 activities. While reviewing facility performance, the committee shall
7 not examine personally identifiable resident incidents. Such committee
8 shall include the administrator or operator of the facility, the resi-
9 dent council president or other resident representative, and represen-
10 tatives from frontline employees from each area of operation.
11 § 2. This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall
12 have become a law.
