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An Act To Improve Hospital Reporting of MRSA Data
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1. 22 MRSA §8761, as enacted by PL 2009, c. 346, §1, is repealed and the following enacted in its place:
§ 8761. Targeted surveillance for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
All hospitals licensed under chapter 405 shall:
 
1.  National Healthcare Safety Network.     No later than February 1, 2012, enroll and maintain enrollment in the National Healthcare Safety Network within the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion;
 
2.  Monthly data report.     Submit to the National Healthcare Safety Network nosocomial methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection data for all inpatients on a monthly basis in accordance with the protocols defined by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;
 
3.  Access by Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.     No later than February 1, 2012, authorize, for public health surveillance purposes only, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention access to the facility-specific infection data pursuant to subsection 2 contained in the National Healthcare Safety Network database; and
 
4.  Access by Maine Health Data Organization.     No later than February 1, 2012, authorize, for public reporting purposes only, Maine Health Data Organization access to the facility-specific infection data pursuant to subsection 2 contained in the National Healthcare Safety Network database.
Sec. 2. Rules. The Maine Health Data Organization shall amend its rules regarding methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus surveillance data to repeal Chapter 270: Uniform Reporting System for Quality Data Sets, Section 3(D) and shall adopt rules regarding public reporting of data reported to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus pursuant to the requirements of the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 22, section 8761. Rules adopted pursuant to this section are major substantive rules as defined in Title 5, chapter 375, subchapter 2-A and must be provisionally adopted and submitted to the Legislature no later than January 15, 2012.
 
SUMMARY
This bill replaces the existing methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, screening protocol that was adopted in 2009, which focuses on the presence of MRSA in patients as they are admitted to a hospital, and replaces it with a protocol that focuses on actual MRSA infections that occur in the patient population while at hospitals.