A BILL to amend the Code of Virginia by adding sections numbered 32.1-127.4 and 63.2-1801.1, relating to Department of Health; Department of Social Services; publicly accessible nursing home information portal; publicly accessible assisted living facility information portal; reporting of incidents involving emergency medical services.
HB1116 would require the Virginia Department of Health to create and maintain a publicly accessible nursing home information portal, and the Department of Social Services to create and maintain a publicly accessible assisted living facility information portal. Each portal would consolidate existing public information such as inspection and survey results, disciplinary actions, and key facility performance metrics, and would also include any additional data reporting items identified later through consultation with stakeholders.
A specific new reporting item is the number of times per quarter emergency medical services were requested for a resident. The portals must be organized by facility name and location and be easy to find from the home page of the relevant agency website. The bill also directs the appropriate boards to adopt regulations needed to implement these requirements.
The bill would add new sections to the Code of Virginia, creating ongoing duties for the Department of Health and the Department of Social Services to publish and maintain facility-specific transparency portals for nursing homes and assisted living facilities. It would also require the reporting and public display of quarterly EMS-request data, expanding the amount of publicly accessible information about long-term care facilities and potentially affecting how facilities are monitored, compared, and regulated.
The available record shows no committee transcript or vote history, and the bill was left in the House Appropriations Committee. Based on the bill text, the measure appears aimed at transparency and consumer information rather than restriction or enforcement, suggesting a generally policy-neutral or supportive framing around public access to care-facility data. However, the lack of recorded debate means there is no direct evidence of support or opposition in the provided materials.
The main potential points of contention are the added reporting and administrative burden on state agencies and facilities, the scope of the data to be collected and displayed, and how additional reporting items would be chosen through stakeholder consultation. Nursing home and assisted living operators may be concerned about public presentation of EMS-request data and performance metrics, while consumer advocates would likely favor greater transparency. Because the bill was left in Appropriations, fiscal and implementation concerns may also have been significant.