AGING AND DISABILITY SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

2005 NH "Dear Administrator" Letters

NOTICE OF CORRECTION

On August 8, 2005, Residential Care Services issued NH #2005-021, regarding Quality Assurance in Nursing Homes.  The second to last paragraph of the letter incorrectly stated “The requirements for QA committees in nursing homes continue to be permissive; it is not required.”

This is to clarify that the requirements for QA committees in nursing homes have not changed. 

Please discard NH #2005-21 and replace with the enclosed revision.

We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

August 24, 2005

ADSA NH 2005-#021
QUALITY ASSURANCE FOR NURSING HOMES

Dear Nursing Facility/Home Administrator:

The legislature recently passed Substitute House Bill 1569 regarding quality assurance (QA) in boarding homes, nursing homes, hospitals, peer review organizations, and coordinated quality improvement plans.  The Governor signed the bill, which became effective July 24, 2005.

The bill adds a new section to the nursing home statute Chapter 74.42 RCW.  In general requirements for nursing home QA committee are similar to the federal. 

Here are a few highlights of the bill:

• If the nursing facility offers the department quality assurance documents as evidence of compliance with requirements, the documents are protected.
• QA committees under nursing facilities, hospitals, health care providers, and other health care institutions and medical facilities are allowed to share information with each other and the documents will not be subject to the discovery process.
• The department is not liable for an inadvertent disclosure, a disclosure for a federal or state audit, or disclosure of documents incorrectly marked by the facility as quality assurance committee documents.

Substitute House Bill can be accessed online at: 
http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2005-06/Pdf/Bills/Session%20Law%202005/1569-S.SL.pdf.

You should not provide QA documents to your surveyors.  QA documents are documents that include analysis and trending of certain issues; they are not a record of individual resident incidents and issues.  It is important that you label QA documents correctly and keep these documents apart from your documents of investigating separate incidents. 

If you have any questions about the statutory changes related to QA, please contact your RCS Field Manager.

Sincerely,

Joyce Pashley Stockwell, Director
Residential Care Services