New Laws to Clean Up Assisted Living Homes Signed Into Law
This story was published in tandem with a segmentfor KCET's award-winning TV show "SoCal Connected." Watch it here now.
The overuse of anti-psychotic medications in nursing homes is not the only problem that has plagued residential care facilities. Assisted living homes have come under fire for mistreating residents. Last year, in a well-publicized incident, a residential care facility in Castro Valley abandoned patients after it was suddenly shuttered by the state.
This week, responding to incidents like this, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law nine bills that collectively overhaul residential care facilities. To be clear, the new laws apply only to the state's 7,500 assisted living facilities. They do not address nursing homes such as the one where Aleah Davis, profiled in our "SoCal Connected" segment, was overmedicated.
"There have been numerous documented stories of the horrors in these facilities," said Patricia L. McGinnis, executive director of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. Her group backed the new laws. (Read KCET's stories on understanding the differences between assisted living facilities and nursing homes, and on considerations to make when choosing a home for your loved ones.)
The regulations largely call for increases in staff training, tighten penalties on offending facilities, and heighten transparency. AB 1570, for example, beefs up staff education. It doubles from 40 to 80 the number of hours of coursework needed for certification. It also doubles the hours of training required in the first four weeks of employment, and mandates 20 hours of on-the-job experience before staff can work alone with residents.
"There's been inadequate training. These facilities have been unregulated, unaccountable and unsafe for residents," said McGinnis.
Another law, AB 2171, targets more intimate aspects of life in residential care. It calls for residents to be treated with "dignity," and for a "reasonable level" of privacy in accommodations, medical treatment, and personal care.
Per the new rules, facilities must post on their websites information about how to obtain inspection reports, and residents will sit on the governing boards of all facilities. The new laws require facilities to remedy problems within 10 days and prohibit the admission of new residents until facilities that have made violations that risk residents' health or safety have fixed the problem. The laws likewise stipulate that state inspectors are now required to visit facilities with allegations pending against them.
The laws take effect at various times beginning Jan. 1 through 2016.
To advocates like McGinnis, the Legislature moved in the right direction, but stopped short of some necessary changes. In this group of laws, reformers wanted to see a decrease in the amount of time that can elapse between unannounced visits from inspectors. Current law allows five years between visits.
"That was a loss," McGinnis said.