Rhode Island is about to join a growing list of states that allow assisted living residents to install their own electronic monitoring devices to allow family members to remotely monitor them.
The Electronic Monitoring in Nursing and Assisted Facilities Act goes into effect Jan. 30 and allows residents or their family or representatives to install electronic monitoring devices that capture images, video and/or audio in a resident’s room.
The act requires consent from roommates, and residents would be responsible for purchasing, installing, maintaining and removing equipment as well as any contract with internet service providers. Communities would be required to post signage alerting those entering a room with cameras that they are under electronic monitoring.
Senior living industry advocacy organizations opposed the bill, saying it goes against the goal of creating a home-like environment for residents. Proponents, however, said that in-room cameras can provide an added measure of oversight and protection for residents.
LeadingAge Rhode Island previously told McKnight’s Senior Living that the bill raised practical and philosophical concerns due to privacy issues. The association was concerned about monitoring devices running counterintuitive to a community’s efforts to implement resident-center care and ensuring dignity in the care setting.
LeadingAge Rhode Island also said the installation of monitoring devices would add a ‘big brother’ feeling to long-term care residences, returning those settings to “an era of institutionalised care.” The association had suggested a more proactive approach of investing in adequate oversight, staffing levels and education to prevent neglect and abuse from occurring in senior living communities.
Laws allowing assisted living residents and their families to install cameras in their rooms have become more common over the past decade, although the practice remains more widespread in nursing homes. In 2016, Utah became the first state in more than a decade, and only the second state overall, to pass such a law covering assisted living communities. Texas became the first state with a camera law applying to assisted living in 2003 when it amended a 2001 law covering nursing homes to also apply to assisted living.
By 2021, at least five more states — Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota — had laws on the books mandating that assisted living communities accommodate resident requests to install electronic monitoring equipment in their rooms. New Jersey also has a “Safe Care Cam” program that loans micro-surveillance equipment to healthcare consumers, including families of assisted living and nursing homes residents.
Source: McKnights Seniorliving
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