Various laws and regulations impact healthcare and, like all things in the legal world, these laws are often evolving. Nursing organizations like the American Nurses Association (ANA) have highlighted a handful of proposals that could impact their profession in coming years. Three proposals that recently caught the ANA’s attention include the following.
1) Protecting Providers Every in America (PPE in America Act).
This proposal would result in more stable funding for personal protective equipment. If passed, it would result in better access to equipment and increased protection for all healthcare workers.
2) Workplace Violence Prevention for Healthcare and Social Workers Act.
Lawmakers behind this proposal are pushing for the United States Department of Labor to establish protection from workplace violence. It focuses specially on instances within the healthcare and social service sectors.
3) Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act.
This piece of legislation focuses on continued growth of telehealth. This proposal has caught the eye of lawmakers in three previous sessions. Advocates say that in this case the fourth time may be the charm. They believe that the pandemic highlighted the important role this type of healthcare can play in providing quality patient care. At this time the CONNECT for Health Act appears to have bipartisan support and the advocates may be right, it could move forward.
If so, growth within telehealth could include expansion of services and removal of geographic restrictions. It will be interesting to see how state nursing boards respond to the geographic restrictions and whether there will be questions about licensing, or if the patients will need to get care from healthcare providers within their state. We will provide updates on this question as well as the fate of these proposals as they become available.