Alaska nursing home responsiveness requirements

Alaska imposes its own mandatory-reporter duty on nursing home administrators and employees: report suspected harm to a vulnerable adult to the Department of Health's vulnerable adult centralized intake office within 24 hours of first having cause to believe it.

the following persons who, in the performance of their professional duties, have reasonable cause to believe that a vulnerable adult suffers from undue influence, abandonment, exploitation, abuse, neglect, or self-neglect shall, not later than 24 hours after first having cause for the belief, report the belief to the department's vulnerable adult centralized intake office: ... (4) an administrator or employee of a nursing home, residential care, or health care facility

Alaska incorporates the federal resident-protection rules by reference for every nursing home, licensed or Medicaid-certified alike - but it freezes them at the July 1, 1991 text, so it does not track the current (2016 rewrite) version of 42 C.F.R. 483.12.

A nursing home must also meet the requirements at 42 C.F.R. 483.10, 483.12, 483.13, and 483.15, as amended July 1, 1991, regardless of whether the nursing home is certified to receive medicaid payments under 7 AAC 43.170.

Separate from the individual mandatory-reporter duty in AS 47.24.010, the facility itself owes its licensing agency two clocks: notice within 24 hours of knowledge of any allegation or suspicion of abuse, neglect, or misappropriation of a service recipient's money or property, and a written investigation report within five days after that notice. A nursing facility is bound because AS 47.32.900(4) defines 'entity' as one listed in AS 47.32.010(b) or (c) and AS 47.32.010(b)(11) is 'nursing facilities' (AS 47.32.900(2)(B)(iv) confirms the point by excluding entity types (b)(6)-(11) from 'assisted living home'). The licensing department is the Alaska Department of Health acting through the Health Facilities Licensing and Certification Unit, which takes these reports by secure fax or Direct Secure Messaging email and further directs certified LTC facilities to report within 2 hours where the allegation involves abuse or serious bodily injury.

An entity shall notify the department with licensing authority for that entity within 24 hours after having knowledge of any allegation or suspicion of abuse, neglect, or misappropriation of money or other property of an individual receiving services from the entity. The entity shall conduct an investigation and make a written report to that department within five days following notification to the department under this subsection.

A nursing facility must ensure that a back-up physician will supervise a resident's medical care whenever the resident's attending physician is unavailable.

another physician will supervise the medical care of the resident when the resident's attending physician is unavailable

A nursing facility must staff an RN seven days a week on days and five days a week on evenings (an LPN on any shift without an RN), must have telephone access to at least one registered nurse at all times, and must post those RNs' names and phone numbers at each nurse's station.

A nursing facility must have telephone access to at least one registered nurse at all times and must post the names and phone numbers of those registered nurses at each nurse's station.

Each facility must have a registered nurse as director of nursing services who is responsible for providing a sufficient number of RNs to meet patient needs; note that the general "RN on duty at all times" rule in (g) is expressly displaced for nursing facilities by 7 AAC 12.275.

Except as provided in (i) of this section for a critical access hospital or 7 AAC 12.275 for a nursing facility, a facility that provides a nursing service must have a registered nurse on duty at all times.

A nursing facility resident has the right to associate and communicate privately with persons of the resident's choice and to have reasonable access to a telephone to make and receive confidential calls; these rights must be posted conspicuously and given in writing to the resident or representative.

(1) to associate and communicate privately with persons of the patient's, client's, or resident's choice; (2) to have reasonable access to a telephone to make and receive confidential calls;

Every facility's risk management program must include a community-coordinated disaster plan addressing staffing shortages, supply disruption, telephone triage, and establishing and maintaining communication with local, state, and federal emergency response agencies, covering both natural disasters and a pandemic influenza outbreak.

a disaster plan developed in coordination with the local community to address the facility's response in case of a disaster; the plan must include community and state resources for staffing and supplies, and prioritized options to account for staffing shortages, disruptions in the supply line, community allocation of staff resources, telephone triage, and plans for establishing and maintaining communication with local, state, and federal emergency response agencies

Alaska writes no standalone resident call-system rule for nursing facilities; instead all renovation, expansion, or new construction must comply with sec. 8 of the AIA Guidelines for Design and Construction of Hospital and Health Care Facilities (2001 ed.), adopted by reference, which is where nursing facility physical plant standards live.

sec. 8 applies to intermediate care facilities for individuals with an intellectual disability or related condition and to nursing facilities

Alaska writes no standalone QAPI rule and no quality assessment and assurance committee requirement for nursing facilities. The closest state analog is the risk management program that 7 AAC 12.600(b) expressly makes applicable to every nursing facility: under 7 AAC 12.860(1) the program must provide for monitoring, evaluating, identifying, correcting, and reassessing care practices that negatively affect quality of care and services or that result in accident or injury to a patient, resident, or staff, and must document deficiencies found and remedial actions taken. Related paragraphs of the same section add a procedure to investigate, analyze, and respond to resident grievances relating to care (paragraph (3)) and an annual review of written policies and procedures approved, signed, and dated by the administrator or the administrator's designee (paragraph (7)). Alaska sets no committee membership, no meeting frequency, and no performance improvement project requirement; a Medicare- or Medicaid-certified facility meets those through 42 C.F.R. 483.75 itself.

provision for monitoring, evaluating, identifying, correcting, and reassessing care practices that negatively affect quality of care and services provided or result in accident or injury to a patient, resident, or staff, and provisions for documenting deficiencies found and remedial actions taken