While the New Jersey Department of Health currently licenses hospitals and multi-room ASCs, the department does not license surgical facilities with a single room. According to New Jersey Hospital Association spokesperson Kerry McKean Kelly, the bill would “finish the process of leveling the playing field between ASCs and hospitals.”
The legislation is also backed by the New Jersey Association of Ambulatory Surgery Centers. One of the tenants of the bill calls for renaming surgical practices as surgical facilities. The NJAASC believes these one-room surgical facilities ¬will be forced to improve quality if the health department is required to license every venue.
“We like this bill as it stands now, and would like to see it passed as soon as possible,” says Jeffrey Shanton, chair, Advocacy & Legislative Affairs Committee, for NJAASC. “We fully support the efforts of Sen. [Joseph] Vitale and Assemblyman [Herb] Conaway, and have worked closely with them to craft this legislation, which we believe is in the best interest of the patient. Transparency is important, as is the need to set the standards of care bar as high as possible, and across the board.”
A study conducted earlier this year by the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute showed that one-room surgical practices experience a higher rate of non-compliance with state safety regulations.
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