Subject of Possible Rule Making: WAC 246-843-130 Continuing education requirements for nursing home administrators, the board of nursing home administrators (board) is considering amending this rule to permanently allow continuing education credit for pandemic related training and experience and, for a limited time, allow nursing home administrators to attest to such trainings acquired under self-study methods if proof of course completion isn't otherwise provided.

Reasons Why Rules on this Subject may be Needed and What They Might Accomplish: The board currently has an emergency rule on this topic, adopted on October 12, 2020, under WSR 20-21-035. The emergency process was used to allow licensees to continue to perform their job of protecting residents and focus on immediate patient needs during the coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) response, which continues to be overwhelming for many nursing homes and long-term care facilities. Permanent adoption of the emergency rule would allow administrators who are currently affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to encourage more training for licensees in the subject and to assist in avoiding a lapse in licensing, which would adversely affect residents. Permanent adoption of the rule would also allow licensees to continue with this type of continuing education through the pandemic and beyond that time frame as it is important that administrators be prepared for pandemic emergencies in the future.

Interested parties can participate in the decision to adopt the new rule and formulation of the proposed rule before publication by contacting Kendra Pitzler, P.O. Box 47852, Olympia, WA 98504-7852, phone 360-236-4723, fax 360-236-2901, TTY 711, email kendra.pitzler@doh.wa.gov, website www.doh.wa.gov.

Additional comments: All notices will be sent to the public through the department of health's applied nursing home administrator distribution list. Interested parties can join the distribution list at https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/WADOH/subscriber/new.