March Legislative Update

Submitted by Christie Steier RN, BSN, CEN - VSNA Lobbyist

March has been a very busy month for legislation in the VT State House that impacts the nursing profession and several other landmark events.  The following is a brief summary of some of those bills and events: 

H.202/S.57  An Act Related to a Single-Payer and Unified Health System

The Senate has scheduled a public hearing regarding this bill for providers only -

                        Date:  April 7, 2011

                        Time: 6 - 8 p.m.

                        Place:  State House in Room 11

* Testimony is limited to 3-5 minutes and you must sign -up at the door to speak.

·    This bill has been passed by the House and has moved to the Senate.  The Senate can pass the bill as is, vote it down or pass it with changes which in that case a Committee of Conference will be called to reconcile the differences.  If agreed upon, the reconciled bill will then go to the governor for signing into law.

·    See instructions at the end of this update for accessing the latest version of this bill that just passed the House. 

S.30 - An Act Making it a Felony to Assault a Healthcare Worker. 

·     Introduced by Senators Doyle, Cummings and Mullins and sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

·    Thanks to the efforts of Alison White and Susan Kruthers from CVMC, Senator Sears, Chair of the Judiciary Committee, was convinced to move the bill into committee discussion.

·    Testimony in support of the bill was given by Matt Choate RN, VT ENA President; James Mongeon, ED of Dept. of State's Attorneys, Sheriffs and Special Investigators; Alison White RN, MHA,VP for Nursing and Quality/Chief Nursing Officer CVMC and Susan Kruthers, VP Community Relations & Development at CVMC.

·     A letter was delivered to Senator Sears from the VSNA expressing support for the legislation and he was very receptive to our input. 

·     After discussion of the bill by the committee and further input requested from the VSNA and CVMC, the bill's language was changed from "felony against a nurse" to "felony against a healthcare worker", in order to include all healthcare facility employees assaulted while caring for the patient.  This extends protection to, i.e., physicians, hospital emergency response teams, (that may include security and pharmacists), and housekeeping employees, etc., enlisted to help prevent a patient from injuring staff.  The bill was passed in the Senate and now moves on to the House.   

We would like to thank the Senate Judiciary Committee for being there for the nurses and all healthcare workers of VT.  Let's hope that the House committee is as receptive! 

 H. 274 - An Act Relating to Patient Choice and Control at End of Life (Patient Directed-Dying bill)

·    There has been no movement on this bill as of yet.

·     After review and an in-depth discussion of input offered by the VSNA membership, the VSNA Board of Directors voted to oppose this legislation.  The new position statement will be posted on the website.

·    If this bill does go to committee and testimony is called for, I will let everyone know so that you can get involved.  

H.358 An Act Relating to Advanced Practice Registered Nurses

This bill has been sent to the House Human Services Committee and there has been no action taken on the bill.  Please look it over if you have a chance.  This is an extreme bill in regard to APRN's and all nurses.  If there is any movement on this bill we will need to mobilize rapidly to oppose it.  I'll keep you updated.     

H. 201 - An Act Relating to Hospice and Palliative Care

The House Human Services Committee is currently taking testimony and discussing this bill.  The legislation seeks to increase education of providers in palliative and end-of-life care and improve access to hospice services.  As in the past the VSNA supports the improvements that this bill will bring to the palliative care and end-of-life health care services offered in VT. 

For the full text of these bills and any other bills introduced this session go to:

1. http://www.leg.state.vt.us
2. Under "2011-2012 Legislative Activity" click on "Today's Bills, Calendars and Journals"
3. At the bottom of the page click on "legislative documents"
4. This will take you to the links for all of the bills, acts, resolutions, etc.

VT BON Reaches 100th Anniversary - On Friday, March 25th a Resolution was read in the House recognizing the 100th Anniversary of the VT Board of Nursing. We join in congratulating them on reaching this important milestone and for their dedication to promoting and protecting the interests of the nursing profession in VT for so many years.

Blue Ribbon Commission

The Governor has appointed Steve Maier to head up a Blue Ribbon Commission to address the Institute of Medicine, Future of Nursing Recommendations.  The eight recommendations include:

1) Remove scope-of-practice barriers

2) Expand opportunities for nurses to lead and diffuse collaborative improvement efforts

3) Implement nurse residency programs

4) Increase proportion of nurses with BSN degree to 80% by 2020

5) Double the number of nurses with a doctorate by 2020

6) Ensure that nurses engage in lifelong learning

7) Prepare and enable nurses to lead change to advance health

8) Build an infrastructure to collect and analyze health care workforce data

For a full discussion of the recommendations visit www.thefutureofnursing.org

If you are interested in joining the VSNA Committee on Government Affairs or willing to testify if needed at Committee hearings in regards to any of the bills introduced please let me know by calling 802-777-1955 or by e-mail at christiesteier2@aol.com.  I look forward to hearing from you.  

Christie

 

February 2011 Legislative Update

Legislative Day at the Statehouse for Vermont nurses will be held on April 20, 2011. The theme of this year’s event will be “Harnessing Nurses’ Political Power” and we are honored to have Janet Haebler RN, MSN as our guest speaker. Janet holds the position of Associate Director for State Government Affairs with the American Nurses Association, the only full-service professional organization representing the interests of the nation's 3.1 million registered nurses through its more than 50 constituent member nurses associations, including the Vermont State Nurses’ Association. She completed her undergraduate degree in nursing at Russell Sage College in New York and master’s degree in nursing with a concentration in administration at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. Throughout almost forty years experience in nursing, Janet has held numerous leadership positions in a variety of settings: acute and long term care, managed care, and academia. She attributes her ability to adapt to policy development in large part to her broad-based experience. Janet spent five years with the New York State Nurses’ Association, during which time she was responsible for the Practice & Government Affairs program. She and her team celebrated such successes as title “nurse” protection and safe patient handling and movement legislation. Janet’s presentation will inform nurses of issues in the nursing profession where nurses can affect positive change through knowledge of the political and regulatory process. It will definitely be an informative and valuable presentation.

The event will begin at the Capitol Plaza Hotel conference room at 8:00 a.m. with Janet’s presentation scheduled for 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Parking is free in the hotel parking area directly behind the hotel. Immediately following her presentation nurses will have the opportunity to go over to the Statehouse and sit in on committee meetings, speak with their representatives and even take an official tour of the Statehouse if they choose. At 1:00 p.m. nurses will be honored in the House Chamber by the reading of the Resolution declaring it “Nurses' Day in Vermont”.

Please plan to attend and learn how to become a more effective advocate for the nursing profession and your patients. Please do not hesitate to call me if you need directions or have any questions. My phone number is 802-876-7445 and my e-mail address is vsnalobbyist@comcast.net.

In other news, it continues to be a busy Legislative session......

The Single Payer System was the foremost issue on the agenda in January. Dr. Hsiao, a renowned Harvard economist, and his team presented an evaluation of Vermont’s current healthcare structure to the Vermont Legislature and offered three options for converting it to a single payer system. Dr. Hsiao recommended Option 3 which is a Public/Private system, as the most affordable for Vermont. You can go to http://www.vermontforsinglepayer.org/ for a copy of the draft document, Dr. Hsiao's PPT presentation and a summary of the Options. Dr. Hsiao's presentation is also available to listen to on VPR at http://www.vpr.net/news_details/89787/ The report will be open for public comment until Feb. 19, 2011. I would like to encourage everyone to at least read the summary and add to the public comment via comments@vermontact128study.com. Vermont nurses need to be involved in the process of ironing out the details of the plan! Our intimate knowledge of the needs of Vermont patients can help to mold a plan that protects both our patients and our practice.

Other issues that will possibly be addressed in this legislative session that have an impact on the nursing profession include; legalizing physician assisted suicide, taxing sweetened beverages, prevention of violence against healthcare workers, updating and expanding the Vermont Blueprint for Health, safe staffing and dissolving the APRN collaborative agreement requirement. Again, please visit the VSNA website for updates on these and other issues.

The VSNA Committee on Government Affairs is a very energetic, active group this year. We welcome anyone interested in getting involved! Please contact me at vsnalobbyist@comcast.net, (phone) 802-777-1955 or call the VSNA office at 802-651-8886 to join up. We look forward to hearing from you