Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

   SECTION 1. Chapter 118G of the General laws, as appearing in the 1998 Official Edition, is hereby amended by adding the following new section:

   Section 24:

(a) The Division shall require hospitals, nursing homes, chronic care and rehabilitation hospitals, other specialty hospitals, clinics, including mental health clinics, all other health care institutions, organizations and corporations licensed or registered by the Department of Public Health and health maintenance organizations as defined in chapter one hundred and seventy-six G to annually report appropriate data, including, but not limited to: 

a.  measures which differentiate between severity of patient illness, readmission rates, length of stay, patient/family satisfaction with care;

b.  indicators of the nature and amount of nursing care directly provided by licensed nurses including, but not limited to, the average ratio of registered nurses to patients or residents and the average skill mix ratio of licensed and supervised unlicensed personnel to patients or residents, medication errors, number and grades of pressure sores, number of falls, number of injuries, number of nosocomial infections and number of preventable hospitalizations; 

c.  documentation of defined nursing interventions such as clinical assessment by a licensed provider, pain measurement and management, skin integrity management, patient education and discharge planning; and

d. documentation of patient safety measures such as restraint checks, seizure precautions and suicidal precautions,
 to enable purchasers of group health insurance policies and health care services and for the public at large to make meaningful financial and quality of care comparisons.
 

     (b) The Division shall consult with interested parties, including but not limited to; the Group Insurance Commission, the Massachusetts Nurses Association, the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium, the Massachusetts Hospital Association, the Public Health Council, Massachusetts Senior Action Council, Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a large labor union, the Division of Medical Assistance, the Board of Registration in Nursing, the Division of Insurance, the Massachusetts Association of Health Maintenance Organizations, and a National Council of Quality Assurance accreditation expert to develop methodologies for collecting and reporting data pursuant to this section and to plan for its use and dissemination to culturally diverse populations.

    (c) Subject to the provisions of section 2(c) of chapter 66A, information collected by the Division pursuant to this section shall be made available annually in the form of printed reports and through electronic medium derived from raw data and/or through computer-to-computer access.  All personal data shall be maintained with the physical safeguards enumerated in said chapter.
 
 

SECTION 2. Paragraph 5, subsection (m) of Section 70E of Chapter 111 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 1998 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking out in line 89 the word “and”.
 

SECTION 3. Said paragraph 5, subsection (n) of said Section 70E of said Chapter 111, as so appearing, is hereby further amended by striking out in line 99 the word “foregoing.” and adding, the following words “foregoing; and”.
 

SECTION 4. Said paragraph 5, subsection (n) of said Section 70E of said Chapter 111, as so appearing, is hereby further amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:-

    (o) upon request, to receive from a duly authorized representative of the facility, disclosure of said facility’s nursing care data, including but not limited to, statistics on the nature and amount of care directly versus indirectly provided by licensed nurses in the facility, including the average ratio of registered nurses to patients or residents and the average skill mix ratio of licensed and supervised unlicensed personnel to patients or residents, the incidents of nosocomial infections, skin integrity data, patient injuries, patient falls, patient satisfaction data and the method(s) used to provide for routine care and unplanned care needs by licensed nurses.  Further, upon request, to receive from said duly authorized representative, information regarding the educational preparation and length of employment of said facility’s nursing staff and to receive a copy of the comparative nursing care data report as outlined in chapter 118G, section 24 subsection (a).   The fee for said report shall be determined by the rate of reasonable copying expenses.