The Florida Legislature is considering a bill which would create the Florida Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Training Act. The Act will establish universal Alzheimer’s disease and related disorder (ADRD) training requirements to be used by nursing homes, home health agencies, nurse registries, hospice providers, assisted living facilities, and adult day care centers, (hereafter “Healthcare Entities”), to replace each license type’s individual training requirements on that topic. It also increases the amount of training which Healthcare Entities must either provide or which staff must complete.
Healthcare Entities would be required, as a condition of licensure, to provide one hour of dementia-related training to each of its employees, whether direct care workers or otherwise, within 30 days of their employment. All “direct care workers”, as defined in the Act and which is consistent with the current and common definition, must receive at least an additional three hours of training within the first four months of employment. Further, except for hospice providers, Healthcare Entities must require all of its direct care workers to receive at least 2 hours of continuing education every 2 calendar years.
In addition to the training requirements above, if a Healthcare Entity advertises that it provides special care for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease or a related disorder which includes direct care to such individuals, the licensee must require its direct care workers to complete and additional 4 hours of training. This training must be completed within 4 months after employment begins.
Training certificates may ‘travel’ with the personnel and the training need not be repeated if personnel provide a copy of the training certificates to the new Healthcare Entity.
The Act delegates broad authority for the DOEA to develop the training curriculum and to approve and register qualified training providers. These rules must be completed by January 1, 2022. This would likely facilitate affected health care providers’ compliance with the requirements of this law.
While not all of the requirements in the bill are new, among the new requirements, it essentially consolidates the training requirements for the affected Healthcare Entities. It would appear that the bill under consideration here has momentum for ultimate passage, due to the fact that companion or similar bills have made progress through several committees of the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate. The Legislature will adjourn on April 30, 2021.