A year after registered nurse Joyce Grayson was killed while visiting a patient at a halfway house for convicted sex offenders, the Connecticut legislature has taken action to help ensure the safety of workers who provide services in patients’ homes.? Public Act 24-19, Substitute Senate Bill No. 1, became effective on October 1, 2024, and provides as follows:
- Home Health care and home health aide agencies, except for hospices, must collect certain information during Patient/Client intake for both the Patient/Client and the location where services will be provided.? Information collected must be given to employees assigned to the Patient/Client.? Agencies may not, however, deny services based solely on the information provided, or the inability or refusal of Patients/Clients to provide requested information.? Agencies must gather information about Patients’/Clients’ history of violence against health care workers, domestic abuse, and substance abuse.? Intake staff must also prepare a list of Patients’/Clients’ diagnoses, including psychiatric history, whether the diagnoses or symptoms have been stable over time, and information on violent acts involving Patients/Clients from judicial records or sex offender registries concerning Patients/Clients.? Regarding services location, agencies must gather information about the municipality’s crime rates; presence of hazardous materials, including used syringes, firearms or other weapons; other safety hazards; and the status of fire alarm systems.
- Home health agencies, except for hospices, must conduct safety assessments at monthly staff meetings with staff who provide direct care and comply with other workplace training requirements related to safety.? Agencies must provide annual training based on curriculum endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration, including training to recognize and manage common home care workplace hazards, and practical ways to manage risks and improve safety.? Reimbursement from the Medicaid Program is conditioned on compliance with the training requirement.? The Medicaid Program may give “rate enhancements” to those agencies that report workplace violence incidents on a timely basis.
- Home health agencies, except for hospices, are required to report Patients’/Clients’ verbal threats, abuse, or similar incidents to the Department of Public Health on an annual basis. Agencies must report every instance of Patients’/Clients’ verbal abuse that staff members perceive as threats of danger, physical or sexual abuse, or any other abuse of staff members.? Agencies must also report on actions taken to ensure affected staff members’ safety.
- The state is required to create a grant program for home health agencies to provide escorts and to purchase technology for staff safety checks.? By January 1, 2025, the state must establish a program to give incentive grants on or before January 1, 2027, for home health agencies to provide safety escorts for staff providing home visits and ways for staff to perform safety checks. The latter may include mobile devices that allow staff to communicate with local police and others in emergencies, or GPS-enabled wearable devices that allow staff to contact local police.
- Public Health Committee Chairpersons are required to convene working groups on staff safety issues for home health agencies and hospices.? The Committee must report its findings no later than January 1, 2025.
Providers in states other than Connecticut may wish to use this new law as a "road map" for their efforts to protect workers.
Referral sources, including discharge planners/case managers, clearly have an important role to play in assisting providers of services to patients/clients in their homes to obtain complete, accurate information to help ensure patients’ safety.?
These requirements place potentially significant financial burdens on providers of services to patients in their homes.? Whether these requirements will improve the safety of workers remains to be seen.? Surely, however, protecting workers is high on the list of every agency’s obligations.
?2024 Elizabeth E. Hogue, Esq.? All rights reserved.
No portion of this material may be duplicated by any means without the advance written permission of the author.