The Office of Certificate of Need and Healthcare Facility Licensure within the Division of Certificate of Need and Licensing within the Health Systems Branch of the Department of Health (Department), in consultation with the Department of Human Services, and with the approval of the Health Care Administration Board, is proposing new rules at N.J.A.C. 8:30 to implement the Health Care Professional Responsibility and Reporting Enhancement Act (Act).
The Act established the Health Care Professional Information Clearinghouse Coordinator within the Division of Consumer Affairs of the Department of Law and Public Safety (Clearinghouse Coordinator). The Act requires health care entities to submit information about health care professionals’ conduct relating to patient safety to the Clearinghouse Coordinator. Health care entities include health care facilities under the jurisdiction of the Department and institutions under the jurisdiction of the Department of Human Services. The Act identifies the circumstances that trigger the reporting obligation and specifies the information that health care entities are to report. At N.J.A.C. 13:45E, the Department of Law and Public Safety established the form and procedures that health care entities are to use to make reports to the Clearinghouse Coordinator. The proposed new rules would incorporate the form and procedures by reference, thereby fulfilling the Department’s obligation pursuant to the Act to establish the form and procedure as it applies to health care entities.
The Act requires the Department to establish penalties applicable to health care entities that fail to comply with the Act. The proposed new rules would prescribe these penalties.
The Act authorizes health care entities that are considering employing a health care professional to request certain information, from other health care entities that employed the professional, regarding the professional’s conduct during the prior employment as it relates to patient safety. The Act requires health care entities that receive these requests to respond and specifies the information they are to provide. In response to requests from health care entities to the Department for uniformity in this process, the proposed new rules would establish a procedure and a standardized form that health care entities are to use to request this information and to respond to these requests.
The proposal appears in the April 18, 2016 issue of the New Jersey Register. Due to a technical error on publication of the proposal, a notice will appear in the May 2, 2016 issue of the New Jersey Register extending until July 1, 2016, the period during which the Department will accept comments on the proposal.
Persons wishing to comment on the proposal must submit written comments either (1) electronically by July 1, 2016 to http://www.nj.gov/health/legal/ecomments.shtml or (2) by regular mail postmarked on or before July 1, 2016, to Joy L. Lindo, Director, Office of Legal and Regulatory Compliance, New Jersey Department of Health, PO Box 360, Trenton, NJ 08625-0360.
LexisNexis provides free online access to the New Jersey Register at http://www.lexisnexis.com/njoal. An unofficial copy of the proposal is also available from the Department’s website at http://nj.gov/health/legal/open.shtml.
