Bourne bill to address CNA shortage passes both Houses unanimously

LITCHFIELD - In response to the national nursing shortage, and in particular the need for Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) at assisted living facilities, Representative Bourne (R-Raymond) has proposed legislation, House Bill 481, to allow CNA’s to fulfill their training at assisted living facilities.

Across the nation, we are facing a nursing shortage. The Illinois General Assembly has looked at various proposals to help provide incentives for people to enter the nursing field and to make it easier for nurses to become certified while still upholding the quality of care necessary.

“This legislation will help assisted living facilities attract CNA’s and it will also allow another path for clinical training for those working to become a CNA,” said Bourne. “This is an example of how our legislative process should work. An idea was brought to me by an assisted living facility facing a CNA shortage. We worked together with stakeholders to develop a solution to their problem and offered amendments to the bill to make it better. The bill then passed the House and Senate with bipartisan, unanimous support. We need more commonsense bipartisan solutions like this.”

House Bill 481 amends the Nursing Home Care Act. The legislation states that the Department of Public Health will now allow an individual to satisfy their supervised clinical experience requirement, needed for a CNA to be placed on the Health Care Worker Registry, through supervised clinical experience at a licensed assisted living establishment.

This measure, House Bill 481, passed unanimously from the House and Senate. Now, the bill awaits the Governor’s signature before becoming law.

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