As House Chair of the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Public Health, Representative Sánchez is committed to promoting prevention and wellness, as well as prudent, evidence-based health care cost containment strategies.
Safety Regulations for School Athletic Programs
Responding to the overwhelming clinical evidence that student athletes who suffer head and spinal injuries face long-term health risks not previously associated with their injuries, Sanchez championed the passage of the law establishing the Interscholastic Athletic Head Injury Safety Training Program.
Under this new law, coaches, parent volunteers or trainers for an extracurricular athletic school activity, and student athletes will receive education and training on how to identify the symptoms of a head or spinal injury. Training includes instruction in recognizing the symptoms of such injuries and advice on how to avoid further injury.
This new law prohibits a student athlete who has suffered a head or spinal injury from participating in extracurricular activities until he or she has been cleared by a physician. This new program will apply to public schools and to any other school whose athletic programs are subject to Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association rules.
Increased Transparency in the Cost of Health Care through the Expansion of the “All Claims Payer Database”
Chairman Sánchez won passage of an important policy to the state’s efforts to realign our health care payment system in the 2011 fiscal year budget debate when his amendment to expand the “All Claims Payer Database” was approved by the Legislature and the Governor.
The state’s claims database serves as a clearinghouse for comprehensive quality and cost information that provides consumers, employers, insurers, and government health officials with the necessary data to make prudent health care purchasing decisions; and in that way help to lower costs by encouraging them to use high-quality, more efficient providers.
Sanchez’ amendment ensures that there will be a true all-payer claims database that will offer a broad understanding of health care costs and medical service utilization across institutions and population.
Expanded Program for Enhanced Coordinated Care for Pediatric Asthma Patients Served by MassHealth
Asthma is the most common chronic disease among children in Massachusetts, affecting 1 in 5 middle school and high school students statewide, and disproportionately affects children in the Boston area. In an effort to improve treatment options for children with asthma while also reducing health care costs, Sánchez secured the inclusion of an expanded pilot program within MassHealth as part of the 2011 state budget to provide high risk pediatric asthma patients enhanced coordinated care though a bundled-payment service in order to offer these children and their families a range of tools and services to better manage their condition at a lower cost.
These services, proven to keep children out of the hospital and emergency room, include nurse care management, age-appropriate controller medications, and family education regarding environmental triggers. The proposal is flexible, allowing doctors and families to utilize treatment options that they determine are most helpful in managing childhood asthma.
Organ and Tissue Donor Registration Fund
An Act Relative to Organ and Tissue Donor Registration Fund establishes a state Advisory Council on Organ Transplants and Donations to work in conjunction with public and private agencies to increase organ donation and transplant awareness and foster more accessible and convenient methods of becoming a registered organ donor. The bill also adds an optional organ and tissue donation opportunity to renewal forms.
The new law seeks to encourage people to sign-up to be organ donors by establishing a method for registering as an organ donor when renewing registrations or licenses online.
Nurse Anesthetists
An Act Relative to Nurse Anesthetists improves the efficiency and quality of medical care in Massachusetts by giving nurse anesthetists a greater role in caring for patients before and after surgery. Nurse anesthetists are one of four “advanced practice” nurse specialties. These nurses have completed graduate-level education and training and are granted expanded responsibilities in caring for patients. Specifically, this law authorizes nurse anesthetists to issue written prescriptions and order tests and therapeutics for the “immediate perioperative care” of a patient—a timeframe that extends from the day prior to the patient’s surgical procedure to the moment the patient is discharged from post-anesthesia care.