TRENTON – The Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee, Chaired by Senator Joseph Vitale, will meet today to take up a series of bills aimed at improving outcomes and conditions in New Jersey’s long-term care facilities.

The committee will meet in-person on Friday, August 21, 2020 at 10:00 AM in Committee Room 4, 1st Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, New Jersey.

The meeting is open to press, and can be listened to on the OLS website here.

Several bills incorporate recommendations for improving conditions and response at long-term care facilities outlined in Manatt Health’s report on long-term care in New Jersey.

The bills in committee are as follows:

S-537 (Codey): would require that the temperature within emergency shelters, rooming and boarding houses, nursing homes, and residential care facilities be maintained between 65 and 81 degrees Fahrenheit.

S-2758 (Cryan): would require the minimum wage for direct care staff in long-term care facilities to be $3 higher than the prevailing state minimum wage and annually adjusted based on cost-of-living increases.

S-2784 (Cryan): would require the state to dedicate a percentage of its stockpile of personal protective equipment, and any personal protective equipment received from the federal “Strategic National Stockpile”, to long-term care facilities in the state during public health emergencies. The State Office of Emergency Management would be required to determine the specific percentage allocation of personal protective equipment for long-term care facilities.

S-2785 (Gopal): would requires DOH to implement and oversee Isolation Prevention Project in long-term care facilities that would operate during public emergencies. The bill would 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.

S-2786 (Weinberg): would allow long-term care facility employees to accrue paid sick leave.

S-2787 (Codey-Rice): would establish New Jersey Task Force on Long-Term Care Quality and Safety which would develop recommendations to drive improvements in person-centered care, resident and staff safety, quality of services, workforce engagement and sustainability and any other appropriate aspects of the long-term system of care in New Jersey.

S-2788 (Ruiz-Pou): would provide supplemental payments to long-term care facility staff providing direct care services during COVID-19 pandemic.

S-2790 (Cryan-Vitale): would establish certain requirements concerning the state’s preparedness and response to infectious disease outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics affecting long-term care facilities. The bill would establish the Long-Term Care Emergency Operations Center (LTCEOC) in the Department of Health (DOH), which would serve as the centralized command for long-term care facility response efforts and communications during infectious disease outbreaks.

S-2798 (Vitale/Ruiz): Establishes uniform requirements on submission of outbreak response plans to DOH by long-term care facilities.

S-2813 (Vitale): would establish a temporary rate adjustment for nursing facilities to support wage increases and to cover costs related to COVID-19 preparedness. The bill would appropriate $62.3 million from the General Fund to the Department of Human Services for the purpose of putting the bill into effect.

SJR-38 (Turner): Designates September of each year as “Sickle Cell Awareness Month” in New Jersey.