Iowa legislators have decided not to review a bill that would require all nursing home staff and administrators serving patients with Dementia and Alzheimers to undergo specific training to help care for those with the diseases. House Study Bill 566 would also have required these workers to take competency evaluations to assure that they were properly trained in caring for those with Dementia and Alzheimers.
Long Term Living Magazine discusses the bill further.
House Study Bill 566 would have required nursing homes to pay for dementia-specific training for employees administive and direct care staff at facilities serving people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Competency evaluations and continuting education would be overseen by the state.
The House Human Resources Committee is not expected to review the bill approved by a subcommittee, says subcommittee chairman Dave Heaton.
Heaton told The Des Moines Register he thought all nursing home employees should be trained on caring for people with dementia but says the bill probably was too restrictive. “There were a lot of things in the bill that made the industry uncomfortable,” he says.
Nursing home industry lobbyists argue that the bill would have been too expensive for nursing homes to fund.
Photo by Jason Mrachina via Flickr CC License
