Bill > A542

Introduced Session

This bill establishes certain requirements concerning palliative care and hospice care. Palliative care is patient-centered and family-centered medical care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing, and treating suffering caused by serious illness. Palliative care may involve addressing physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs, as well as facilitating patient autonomy, access to information, and choice. Specific examples of palliative care include comprehensive pain and symptom management and discussion of treatment options appropriate to the patient, such as hospice care. Hospice care is a coordinated program of home, outpatient, and inpatient care and services that provides care and services to hospice patients and to hospice patients' families, through a medically directed interdisciplinary team, under interdisciplinary plans of care in order to meet the physical, psychological, social, spiritual, and other special needs that are experienced during the final stages of illness, dying, and bereavement. The bill would establish the "Palliative Care and Hospice Care Consumer and Professional Information and Education Program" in the Department of Health (DOH). The purpose of the program would be to ensure that comprehensive and accurate information and education about palliative care and hospice care are available to the public, to health care providers, and to health care facilities. The bill will require every hospital, nursing home, extended care facility, ambulatory health care facility providing long-term care services, and rehabilitation facility licensed in this State to provide information about appropriate palliative care and hospice care services to patients and residents with a serious illness. The Commissioner of Health may require a hospital, nursing home, or facility that fails to comply with these requirements to provide a plan of action to bring the hospital, nursing home, or facility into compliance. In implementing these requirements, DOH would be required to take into account the size of the facility; access and proximity to palliative care and hospice care services, including the availability of hospice and palliative care board-certified practitioners and related workforce staff; geographic factors; and any other factors that may impact the ability of a hospital, nursing home, or facility to comply. The bill establishes the Palliative Care and Hospice Care Advisory Council in DOH. It would be the duty of the council, in collaboration with the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, to implement the provisions of the substitute, including establishing the Palliative Care and Hospice Care Consumer and Professional Information and Education Program, developing the information to be provided to patients and residents by hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities and facilitating the provision of this information, and developing resources and programs to facilitate access to palliative care and hospice care services for patients and residents. The council will comprise nine members, to be appointed as follows: one member of the Senate appointed by the Senate President; one member of the General Assembly appointed by the Speaker of the General Assembly; two public members appointed by the Senate President; two public members appointed by the Speaker of the General Assembly; and three public members appointed by the Governor. In selecting the public members, the Senate President, the Speaker of the General Assembly, and the Governor would be required to seek to include persons who have experience, training, or academic background in issues related to the provision of palliative care or hospice care, and would be permitted to consult with various professional boards and stakeholders. The bill would require all appointments to be made within 30 days after the effective date of the bill. The public members would serve for a term of five years; except that, of the members first appointed, two would serve for a term of three years, two for a term of four years, and three for a term of five years. Members will be eligible for reappointment upon the expiration of their terms, and vacancies in the membership would be filled in the same manner as the original appointments. The council will organize as soon as is practicable upon the appointment of a majority of its members, and select a chairperson from among the members. The members of the council will serve without compensation but may be reimbursed, within the limits of funds made available to the council, for necessary travel expenses incurred in the performance of their duties. The council will be entitled to call to its assistance and avail itself of the services of the employees of any State, county, or municipal department, board, bureau, commission, or agency as it may require and as may be available for its purposes. DOH will provide staff support to the council.

Committee Categories

Herbert Conaway (D)*,  Joe Danielsen (D)*,  Thomas Giblin (D)*,  Jamel Holley (D)*,  Raj Mukherji (D)*,  Nancy Pinkin (D)*,  Benjie Wimberly (D)*,  Tony Bucco (R),  Ralph Caputo (D),  Nicholas Chiaravalloti (D),  Jack Ciattarelli (R),  Ronald Dancer (R),  Patrick Diegnan (D),  JoAnn Downey (D),  Timothy Eustace (D),  DiAnne Gove (R),  Eric Houghtaling (D),  Angelica Jimenez (D),  Gordon Johnson (D),  Patricia Jones (D),  John McKeon (D),  Angela Mcknight (D),  Paul Moriarty (D),  Gabriela Mosquera (D),  Elizabeth Muoio (D),  Declan O'Scanlon (R),  Annette Quijano (D),  David Rible (R),  Kevin Rooney (R),  Brian Rumpf (R),  Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D), 

Received in the Senate, Referred to Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee (on 12/11/2017)