Governor Signs ACF Quality Assurance Bill
On Dec. 22nd, Governor Hochul signed A.5846 (Kim)/S.1784-A (Skoufis), a bill requiring adult care facilities (ACFs) to:
- include infection control in quality assurance (QA) activities; and
- create a QA committee that must meet at least every six months to review summary findings from monitoring of the facility’s QA plan, evaluate the effectiveness of corrective action policies, and identify trends and improvement activities. The committee must include the administrator/operator, resident council president or other resident representative, and representatives from frontline employees from each area of operation.
The requirement will become effective 90 days after the signing of the bill, in mid-March. LeadingAge NY will share more information with members as it becomes available but wanted to be sure you were aware so you can plan for this requirement.
While we know that members have always prioritized QA, and infection control has become a part of your everyday work, we expressed concerns to the Governor about imposing new requirements when providers are so stretched and implementing a requirement that would pull staff away from resident care. It should be noted that we effectively fought off efforts to add more onerous provisions to the bill, including an effort to add increased penalties and fines to ACFs. LeadingAge NY anticipates seeing the effort to increase penalties again in the upcoming legislative session.
Contact: Diane Darbyshire, ddarbyshire@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8828