"This settlement reflects our commitment to ensuring that executives who are ultimately responsible for care furnished in nursing homes are held accountable when those homes fail to provide quality care," said Inspector General Daniel R. Levinson, in the press release. "It is critical that boards and management make compliance with professionally recognized standards of care a priority at all levels of their organizations."

State: Maine Enacts New Laws to Improve Health Care


The state of Maine has recently enacted new laws to improve its state of medical care. In June, a law was enacted to increase transparency in the health insurance marketplace. Also, under a new law, Maine hospitals will perform targeted surveillance for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in high-risk populations consistent with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

In July, Governor John Baldacci signed legislation creating the Doctors for Maine's Future Scholarship Program. This law provides a tuition subsidy for Maine residents to support their medical education at various state medical school programs. "We have a need for more primary care physicians and those who serve in rural areas of the State," Baldacci said in a press release. "Research shows that doctors tend to settle near the hospitals where they complete their training. I know that given the chance, young doctors will stay in Maine." The tuition subsidy will cover half the cost of attendance annually up to $25,000 for eligible students in the medical school programs.

Baldacci also signed a law allowing pharmacists who meet certain requirements to administer several different vaccines, including influenza vaccine, pneumococcal vaccine, tetanus-diphtheria-pertussis vaccine and others. "This bill expands access to important preventive health care services," Governor Baldacci said in his press release. "In particular, I know the Maine Center for Disease Control supports the efforts to provide influenza vaccines to as many people as possible."

National: Senator Introduces Legislation to Ease Nationwide Nursing Shortage

Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) has introduced legislation to remedy the U.S.'s nursing shortage which, according to the senator's press release, is expected to exceed one million by 2020. The Nurse Training and Retention Act builds on the current health care workforce through creation incentives for health care workers to become nurses and for current nurses to become nurse faculty.

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