Source: United States Senator for Ohio Sherrod Brown
Bill Improves Staffing, Quality, Oversight of Nursing Homes
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) along with Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Bob Casey (D-PA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Michael Bennet (D-CO), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) today introduced legislation to update federal nursing home policy to improve quality of care and oversight, after the COVID-19 pandemic took the lives of hundreds of thousands of residents and workers in nursing homes.
“This pandemic has shown us how necessary it is to improve the quality of care at nursing homes across the country,” said Senator Brown. “Too often, nursing home staff are stretched too thin, caring for too many patients with not enough support. This legislation puts nursing home residents and their caregivers first by improving oversight and guaranteeing seniors receive quality care and workers have the resources they need to handle public health crises.”
The Nursing Home Improvement and Accountability Act takes significant steps to modernize nursing homes by filling much-needed gaps in staffing, transparency, accountability, oversight, and the structure and culture of facilities. These steps will improve care for residents and ensure nursing homes are better prepared to face future public health emergencies.
The bill would require nursing homes to meet minimum staffing standards, ensure a Registered Nurse (RN) is available 24 hours a day, require a full-time infection control and prevention specialist, and provide additional resources through Medicaid to support these care and staffing improvements and raise wages. The bill also takes a number of steps to increase transparency and accountability by improving data collection, providing better information to residents and their families, and enhancing the effectiveness of state surveys. The legislation would also ban predispute binding arbitration clauses for nursing home residents, something Brown has fought for years.
The legislation comes as the world continues to fight the pandemic and account for the extremely high prevalence of COVID-19 deaths in America’s nursing homes. Almost one in three COVID-19 deaths in the United States were connected to nursing homes. Meanwhile, a report from the HHS Office of the Inspector General found that 71 percent of the nation’s 15,295 nursing homes have not been surveyed on safety and quality of care since the pandemic began. A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that only 25 percent of facilities met staffing thresholds the federal government has said are needed to avoid quality problems. The bill directs the federal government to create a minimum requirement of staff per residents at a given facility.
In May 2021, on International Nurses Day, Brown led his colleagues in reintroducing the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act, which would ensure nurses working in hospitals have dignity in the workplace and can put the safety of their patients first. The Nursing Home Improvement and Accountability Act would build on this legislation to ensure nurses and other aides working in nursing homes have the support and staffing levels they need to provide quality care.
A one page summary of the bill can be found here.
A section-by-section summary of the bill can be found here.
A copy of the legislative text can be found here.
###