Bill > S2785

Introduced Session

This bill would require the Department of Health to implement and oversee an Isolation Prevention Project in long-term care facilities that would be operable during public emergencies. At a minimum, the Isolation Prevention Project is to require each long-term care facility in the State to adopt and institute a written isolation prevention plan and have appropriate technology, staff, and other capabilities in place to prevent the facility's residents from becoming isolated during public emergencies. The isolation prevention plan adopted by each long-term care facility is to: 1) authorize residents of the facility to continue to engage in in-person contact and communication with other facility residents and with family members, friends, and other external support systems during a public emergency, to the extent that such in-person contact remains consistent with the circumstances of the public emergency, the orders that have been implemented to address that public emergency, and the facility's outbreak response plan. The plan is to provide that, if in-person contact and communication is physically impossible or is deemed to pose a danger to the facility's residents, due to environmental or other factors or circumstances resulting from the public emergency, or if in-person contact is officially limited or prohibited by the terms of the facility's communicable disease outbreak response plan or by the orders that are implemented to address the emergency, as in the case of social distancing requirements imposed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, residents will be required to adhere to applicable social distancing guidelines or requirements or other official limitations or prohibitions imposed on in-person contact and communication, as appropriate, but will remain authorized to engage in contact and communication by alternative electronic means, as provided by the bill; 2) authorize residents of the facility, including residents who may be physically isolated as a result of the implementation of the facility's outbreak response plan, to engage in face-to-face or verbal/auditory contact and communication with other facility residents and with family members, friends, and other external support systems during a public emergency, through the use of electronic or virtual means and methods, including, but not limited to, computer technology, the Internet, social media, videoconferencing, and other innovative technological means or methods; 3) provide for residents of the facility who have disabilities that impede their ability to communicate, including, but not limited to, residents who are blind, deaf, or deaf-blind, residents who have Alzheimer's disease or other related dementias, and residents who have developmental disabilities, to be given access to assistive and supportive technology as may be necessary to facilitate the residents' face-to-face or verbal/auditory contact and communication with other residents, family members, friends, and other external support systems, through electronic means; 4) provide for the facility to preemptively acquire, and to engage in the ongoing maintenance and replacement of, computers, videoconferencing equipment, distance-based communications technology, assistive and supportive technology and devices, and other technological equipment and accessories or electronic licenses as may be necessary to ensure that residents of the facility are able to engage in face-to-face or verbal/auditory communications with other facility residents and with family members, friends, and external support systems, through electronic means, during times of public emergency; and include a budget outlining the projected costs associated with the purchase, maintenance, and replacement of equipment, technology, and licenses pursuant to this paragraph; and 5) provide for the facility to employ a sufficient number of qualified staff to train and daily assist residents in successfully accessing and using the technology and equipment acquired by the facility, pursuant to the bill, for the purposes of engaging in face-to-face or verbal/auditory contact and communication with other residents, family members, friends, or external support systems, through electronic means; and include a budget outlining the projected costs associated with the hiring and retention of such staff or the training of existing staff to perform these tasks. Due to the current COVID-19 public health emergency and the resulting threat of isolation that is now being faced by the residents of long-term care facilities, the bill would require the Commissioner of Health to adopt rules and regulations, on an emergency basis, to implement its provisions. Such rules and regulations are to be adopted within 30 days after the date of the bill's enactment, notwithstanding the provisions of the "Administrative Procedure Act," P.L.1968, c.410 (C.52:14B-1 et seq.) to the contrary. A long-term care facility will be required to prepare and submit an isolation prevention plan to the department, within 30 days after the bill's enactment, regardless of whether the department has finalized the emergency adoption of rules and regulations pursuant to the bill's provisions. To the extent necessary, the plan is to be revised and reapproved following the commissioner's adoption of emergency rules and regulations. The long-term care facility will also be required to review and revise the plan on at least a biennial basis after the plan is initially approved and implemented. Any revised plan is to be submitted to the department for approval within 10 days after material changes are made thereto. Within 30 days after receipt of a proposed or revised plan submitted under the bill, the department will be required to review and either approve or conditionally approve the plan. The department is to approve the plan, so long as it complies with the provisions of the bill and the rules and regulations adopted pursuant thereto, to the extent that those rules and regulations have been adopted. If the department conditionally approves the plan, it will be required to state, in writing, the reasons for the conditional approval and the revisions that are to be made to the plan in order to ensure that it complies with the bill and the rules and regulations adopted pursuant thereto. The long-term care facility will be required to adopt, and implement the plan in accordance with, any mandatory revisions that are identified by the department in a conditional approval. If the department does not respond to the submission within 30 days, the proposed or revised plan will be deemed to have been approved on a non-conditional basis, and the facility may proceed to implement the plan without change. Notwithstanding the bill's provisions to the contrary, if a plan is submitted to the department for review during a time of documented public emergency, as is currently the case with the COVID-19 pandemic, the plan will be deemed to be tentatively approved as of the date of its submission to the department, and the plan is to be put into immediate effect, pending the department's final conditional or non-conditional approval pursuant to the procedures established by the bill.

AI Summary

Committee Categories

Vin Gopal (D)*,  Nellie Pou (D)*,  Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D)*,  Daniel Benson (D),  Richard Codey (D),  Linda Greenstein (D),  Mila Jasey (D),  Gordon Johnson (D),  Teresa Ruiz (D),  Mike Testa (R), 

Approved P.L.2020, c.113. (on 10/23/2020)

Official Document