Senate Bill No. 123
(By Senator Hunter)
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[Introduced January 9, 2008; referred to the Committee on Health
and Human Resources; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
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A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by
adding thereto a new article, designated §16-3E-1, §16-3E-2,
§16-3E-3, §16-3E-4 and §16-3E-5, all relating to voluntary
control and prevention of infections in hospitals, ambulatory
surgical centers and other health care facilities generally;
providing legislative findings and purposes; defining certain
terms; creating the Infection Control Advisory Panel; and
providing responsibilities and functions of the advisory
panel.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended
by adding thereto a new article, designated §16-3E-1, §16-3E-2,
§16-3E-3, §16-3E-4 and §16-3E-5, all to read as follows:
ARTICLE 3E. GOVERNOR'S ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON CONTROL AND
PREVENTION OF INFECTIONS IN HOSPITALS, AMBULATORY SURGICAL CENTERS AND OTHER HEALTH
CARE FACILITIES.
§16-3E-1. Legislative findings; purpose.
The Legislature finds that hospital-acquired infections affect
approximately two million persons annually in the United States.
The Institute of Medicine reports that preventable adverse patient
events, including hospital-acquired infections, are responsible for
more than forty-four thousand deaths annually. To ensure that
hospital-acquired infections in this state are monitored and
prevented, it is necessary to develop a voluntary program within
the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health to monitor and prevent
the incidence of infections acquired in hospitals and other similar
health care facilities in this state.
Therefore, it is essential to the health and well-being of the
citizens of this state, that hospitals and other similar health
care facilities participate in reporting infection incidence rates
in order to guide prevention efforts.
The purpose of this article is to decrease the incidence of
infection within health care facilities in this state.
§16-3E-2. Citation of article.
This article may be known and cited as the "West Virginia
Nosocomial Infection Control Act of 2008."
§16-3E-3. Definitions.
As used in this section:
(1) "Advisory panel" means the infection control advisory
panel created by section five of this article;
(2) "Antibiogram" means a record of the resistance of microbes
to various antibiotics;
(3) "Antimicrobial" means the ability of an agent to destroy
or prevent the development of pathogenic action of a microorganism;
(4) "Bureau for Public Health" means the Bureau of Public
Health as provided in article one, chapter sixteen of this code;
(5) "Charge data" means information submitted by health care
providers on current charges for leading procedures and diagnoses;
(6) "Charges by payer" means information submitted by
hospitals on amount billed to Medicare, Medicaid, other government
sources and all nongovernment sources combined as one data element;
(7) "Financial data" means information submitted by hospitals
drawn from financial statements which includes the balance sheet,
income statement, charity care and bad debt and charges by payer,
prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting
principles;
(8) "Health care provider" means hospitals and ambulatory
surgical centers;
(9) "Nosocomial infection" means a nosocomial infection as
defined by the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
and applied to infections within hospitals, ambulatory surgical
centers, and other facilities;
(10) "Nosocomial infection incidence rate" means a
risk-adjusted measurement of new cases of nosocomial infections by
procedure or device within a population over a given period, with
measurements defined by rule of the Bureau for Public Health for
use by all hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, and other
facilities in complying with the requirements of the West Virginia
Nosocomial Infection Control Act of 2008;
(11) "Other facility" means a type of facility determined to
be a source of infections and designated by rule of the Bureau for
Public Health; and
(12) "Patient abstract data" means data submitted by hospitals
which includes, but is not limited to, date of birth, sex, race,
zip code, county of residence, admission date, discharge date,
principal and other diagnoses, including external causes, principal
and other procedures, procedure dates, total billed charges,
disposition of the patient and expected source of payment with
sources categorized according to Medicare, Medicaid, other
government, workers' compensation, all commercial payors coded with
a common code, self-pay, no charge and other.
§16-3E-4. Infection Control Advisory Panel.
Within three months of the effective date of this article, the
Governor shall appoint the members of the Infection Control
Advisory Panel who serve at the will and pleasure of the Governor.
The members shall include:
(1) One public member;
(2) Two board-certified or board-eligible licensed physicians
who are affiliated with a West Virginia hospital or medical school,
active members of the Society for Health Care Epidemiology of
America, and have demonstrated interest and expertise in health
facility infection control;
(3) One licensed physician who is active in the practice of
medicine in West Virginia and who holds medical staff privileges at
a West Virginia hospital;
(4) Three infection control practitioners certified by the
Certification Board of Infection Control and Epidemiology, at least
two of whom shall be practicing in a rural hospital or setting and
at least two of whom shall be licensed registered professional
nurses;
(5) A medical statistician with an advanced degree in the
specialty; and
(6) A clinical microbiologist with an advanced degree in the
specialty; and
(7) The Commissioner of the Bureau for Public Health who
serves as the chair and ex officio nonvoting member of the panel.
Except for the commissioner, panel members shall be reimbursed
from funds appropriated to the Bureau for Public Health for their
reasonable expenses and fees as required for the performance of
their duties.
§16-3E-5. Infection Control Advisory Panel to develop criteria for
implementation of voluntary reporting.
Not later than the fifteenth day of October, two thousand
eight, and at least monthly after that, the Infection Control
Advisory Panel shall meet in offices provided by the Commissioner
of the Bureau for Public Health for the purposes of organizing and
developing a voluntary infection control system to decrease the
incidence of infection within health care facilities in this state.
In order to develop the voluntary infection control system,
the panel shall:
(1) Identify those health care facilities willing to
voluntarily participate in reporting of the incidence of infection;
(2) Propose procedures and policies for implementing a
voluntary infection reporting program that includes the terms
defined in section three of this article and including policies and
procedures to protect confidentiality of patient and facility
privacy and prohibiting use of information for any other purpose;
(3) Pursue the recommendations of the Center For Disease
Control to reduce the incidence of health facility infections; and,
(4) Recommend legislation to the Governor and the Legislature
as may be needed to implement the provisions of this article.
In order to carry out its responsibilities, the panel may call
upon the Commissioner of the Bureau for Public Health and his or
her designees to facilitate the development of information, coordinate meetings and conferences with affected health care
providers, and provide the necessary staff support as may be
required by the panel. The panel shall develop and provide a
report to the Governor and the Legislature, along with proposed
legislation, to implement the provisions of this article, on the
first day of the regular session of the Legislature in two thousand
nine, and every year after that, detailing the progress being made
to reduce the incidence of infection in health care facilities in
this state.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to establish a voluntary
program to control and prevent infections in hospitals, ambulatory
surgical centers and other health care facilities in this state.
The bill provides for the appointment of the Infection Control
Advisory Panel. The panel, along with the Bureau for Public
Health, is responsible for developing and implementing the program.
This article is new; therefore, strike-throughs and
underscoring have been omitted.
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