I1029

2 years ago, a healthcare Union called the SEIU started an intiative called I1029 that aimed at giving Home Health aides more training. This initiative passed with the greatest margin in Washington state history. The intent was to give Home Health aides more training, but Adult Family Homes and Boarding Homes got thrown in the mix as well.

For the last 2 years, the Department of Social & Health Services (DSHS) and Department of Health (DOH) have struggled with how to institute these new training requirements under a strict budget.

The new training requirements went into law on 1/1/2011 under and emergency WAC. At the end of March, the govener proposes to delay this training another 2 years due to budget contraints.

I struggle with whether or not to delay these trainings. There are pros & cons to these delays.

1) The voters of Washington want these trainings. It passed with the highest margin in State history. It's hard for me to delay these trainings when it is what the voters want.
2) Everyone will agree that nursing assistants need more education, but nursing assistants are the lowest paid health care workers and they don't have the time or the money to get the additional hours of education that is required
3) This program is estimated to cost about $25 million. The govener needs to cut over $6 billion from the budget to balance it. That is 0.004% of the budget. It's not really high on the priority list. Why not just continue with the higher trainings and improve care. Maybe the higher trainings will improve care & end up decreasing healthcare costs overall by decreasing errors and other problems.
4) As a Director of Nursing, it is going to be really difficult to get the staff through 75 hours of training. But Nursing Homes have been getting their nursing assistants through a 4 week certification course for years. If they can do it, shouldn't we make the extra effort too?

What do you all think about I1029?