Bill > A5945

Introduced Session

This bill would require psychiatric hospitals in the State to notify various parties about any major injury, moderate injury, or minor injury that is suffered by a patient, an employee, or any other person at the psychiatric hospital. The bill would further require the Commissioner of Health to investigate any reports of moderate or major injuries occurring in psychiatric hospitals, in order to determine whether each such injury resulted from professional misconduct or, in the case of a patient injury, resulted from the abuse of the patient. While existing law does require psychiatric hospitals to regularly report on the number of moderate and major injuries that result from interactions occurring among patients or between patients and employees, the law does not require the reporting of minor injuries, or the reporting of any injuries that result from interactions involving patients, employees, and other persons, such as visitors, who are neither patients nor employees but are present at the hospital. The existing law also provides only for quarterly reporting of injury-related information, and it does not provide for injuries to be immediately reported to any interested parties, or investigated by departmental officials in any way. This bill would modify the existing law to make it more consistent with the injury notification and investigation requirements that are currently applicable, under P.L.2017, c.238 (C.30:6D-9.1 et seq.), to community-based residential programs that serve persons with developmental disabilities. Under the bill's provisions, a psychiatric hospital will be required to provide immediate notification of any major, moderate, or minor injury suffered by any person at the hospital to the commissioner. In the case of patient injury, immediate notification of the injury is also to be provided to the guardian of the injured patient, or, if there is no guardian, to a family member of the patient who has requested such notification, unless the patient has expressly prohibited the family member from receiving such notification. A psychiatric hospital will not be required to provide notice of patient injury to a patient's guardian or family member, if that guardian or family member has expressly stated, in a written document filed with the psychiatric hospital, that the person does not want to receive notification of injury. Any notification of patient injury would need to be provided as soon as possible, but no later than two hours after the occurrence of the injury, except when an extraordinary circumstance prevents compliance with this requirement, in which case, notification is to be provided as soon as possible, but no later than eight hours after the occurrence of the injury. In any case where notice is delayed, the psychiatric hospital will be required to prepare a written, detailed explanation describing the extraordinary circumstance that led to the delay. The notice of injury required by the bill is to be provided through in-person means, or by telephone. However, electronic means may be used to engage in follow-up communications following the initial notification. Within 48 hours after receipt of a report of an incident involving major injury or moderate injury of a patient at a psychiatric hospital, the commissioner will be required to send a Department of Health employee, who is not an employee of a State psychiatric hospital, to the location of the reported incident in order to verify the incident's severity, identify the factors that led to the injury, and make a determination as to whether the injury has resulted from patient abuse or professional misconduct. If the investigation indicates that the injury resulted from patient abuse or professional misconduct, the commissioner will be required to forward the incident report, and any associated evidence discovered through the department's investigation, to the county prosecutor or the relevant professional licensing board for disciplinary action, as provided by the existing law that governs the reporting and investigation of allegations of abuse and professional misconduct occurring in psychiatric hospitals. Any owner or operator of a psychiatric hospital that fails to comply with the bill's injury reporting requirements will be liable to pay a civil penalty of not more than $5,000; and may also be required to pay an additional administrative penalty, in an amount determined by the commissioner to be appropriate. Each violation of the bill's provisions would constitute a separate offense. Under the bill, the department's quarterly injury report would need to separately identify, for each State psychiatric hospital, the number of unexpected deaths occurring in the hospital, and the number of major, moderate, and minor injuries occurring as a result of interactions: 1) among patients; 2) between patients and staff members; 3) between patients and other persons, such as visitors, who are neither patients nor employees of the hospital but are present therein; and 4) between employees and other persons, such as visitors, who are neither patients nor employees of the hospital but are present therein. The bill would also make minor substantive changes, and technical and clarifying amendments, to the existing law at P.L.1997, c.70 (C.30:4-3.15 et seq.), which relates to the reporting and investigation of allegations of patient abuse and professional misconduct occurring in psychiatric hospitals. These amendments would clarify that it is the Department and Commissioner of Health (and not the Department and Commissioner of Human Services) that are now responsible for the implementation of that law, as provided by Reorganization Plans 001-2017 (Christie) and 001-2018 (Murphy). The amendments would also: 1) require the department's designated contact person to accept reports of abuse or professional misconduct that are submitted by phone, by mail, or by electronic transmission; 2) require the department's Internet website to identify the phone number, email address, and mailing address of the contact person to whom reports of abuse and professional misconduct are to be submitted; and 3) require the department's designated contact person, upon receipt of a report of abuse or professional misconduct, to forward a copy of the report to the commissioner or the commissioner's designee. The designated contact person will also be required to maintain a summary record of all complaints submitted thereto. That summary record is to: 1) indicate, by category, the nature of complaints that were included in the complaints; 2) omit the personally identifying information of any person who was involved in each incident or the reporting thereof; 3) be posted on the department's Internet website; and 4) be regularly updated to incorporate the most current reporting information. The amendments would also make various technical and clarifying changes to this existing law, and eliminate confusing references to a bill that was introduced in 1996, but was never enacted.

AI Summary

Committee Categories

Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D)*, 

Introduced, Referred to Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee (on 11/18/2019)

Official Document