Assemblyman William Colton (D – Gravesend, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, and Dyker Heights) supports a number of bills which he co-sponsored and passed the NYS Assembly with new Nursing Home regulations. One bill which passed the assembly and was co-sponsored by the assemblyman is the data system (HERDS) which was designed to create a law that a Health emergency response will bring transparency and information gathered during public health emergencies, including communicable disease outbreaks like COVID-19, by requiring the Department of Health to share aggregate data from HERDS reports with various entities and the public.

“Another bill abolishes the Emergency or Disaster Treatment Protection Act which protected health care facilities and health care professionals from liability that may result from treatment of individuals with COVID-19 under conditions resulting from circumstances associated with the public health emergency. Section 2803 of the public health law has been amended by adding a new subdivision where the commissioner will require each residential health care facility to provide residents and their families with a separate document, as part of an intake application, in no less than twelve-point font, that includes information on how a potential resident and their family members can lookup complaints,citations,inspections,enforcement actions, and penalties taken against the facility including the web address for the New York state nursing home profiles website that is maintained by the department and the nursing home,” Colton stated.

“Another bill which passed both the Assembly and Senate, will establish a long-term care task force to examine the state of long-term care, both home-based and facility-based, in the state, and consider potential models for improvement. It will examine both the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on long-term care as well as the broader long-term system in New York. It will also authorize the Department of Health to develop regulations to allow personal caregiving visitation, for the provision of routine care and support, and for concerned caregiving visitation, for the provision of short-term emergency care and support at end of life or other terrible circumstances, by family members and legal guardians of residents of nursing homes and other residential health care facilities. It will also require adult care facilities to incorporate standards for infection control in each facility and quality assurance plans which require such plans to include a quality improvement committee. This will increase the transparency regarding a residential health care facility's compliance with control in each facility's quality assurance and require such plans to include a quality improvement committee and ensure the safety and appropriate discharge or transfer of individuals from residential health care facilities. This seeks to address problem of prohibiting all family visitation in nursing homes and of whether residents were adequately cared for during COVID-19 crisis,” Colton continued.

“During this COVID emergency families were greatly concerned for the proper care and were denied visiting their loved once. Therefore, these bills seek to correct many of the problems and concerns which occurred during the COVID crisis. I hope that the Senate and the Governor will promptly enact them into law,” Colton added.