Lawmakers advance Arizona bill to allow live video monitoring in nursing homes

State lawmakers appear ready to let nursing home residents set up video cameras so someone can monitor the way they’re treated when no one else is around.

Senate Bill 1041 would override any rules or practices in these facilities that bar such live cameras as long as they were placed in a resident's own room. And if they are unable to consent, that right would belong to the person who has the legal right to act on the resident's behalf.

The 16-1 vote by the House Appropriations Committee this past week came over the objections of lobbyists who represent nursing homes and assisted living facilities, which also would fall under the scope of the legislation. They say that such monitoring could invade the privacy of others who happened to be in the resident's room.

But the bipartisan majority said they were swayed by the belief that a resident's room is no different than a private home where people are now free to monitor.

"It's all about public safety to me,'' said Rep. Quang Nguyen, the Prescott Valley Republican who is the sponsor. He said statistics show there are an increased number of reports of abuse of vulnerable adults in these facilities.

"Is this a perfect solution? I don't know, but we need to do something about it,” Nguyen said.

And that "something,'' he said, is monitoring.

For some of the lawmakers on the panel, the issue was more personal than the statistics cited by Nguyen.

"I truly wish we had the ability to put a camera in my grandmother's room during COVID,'' said Rep. Nancy Gutierrez (D-Tucson).

The onset of COVID was a period where facilities were pretty much off limits to regular visitors, including family members.

Gutierrez said what happened to her grandmother in a "very highly rated, very expensive'' facility in Scottsdale amounted to abuse.

"She was absolutely neglected,'' she said. "And we have no proof they were doing that, other than she was fine before COVID and went downhill because they literally ignored her and abandoned her.''

Gutierrez said if there had been a camera, she would have been able to monitor what was happening in real time and be able to dispute claims by staff that they were tending to her grandmother and ensuring that she was being fed. Her grandmother died in 2020 while still in the facility.

"That's exactly why this type of camera should be available,'' Gutierrez said.

Jake Hinman, who represents the Assisted Living Federation of America, said his clients who operate such facilities find what is being proposed objectionable.

"A number of them have to do with private property rights and the sanctity of those rights, and the ability to manage and control your property with your customers,'' Hinman told lawmakers.

He also said there is a possible "loss of dignity for people who may not want to be filmed or are aware they are being filmed in some of the most intimate acts, including being changed.'' And he said there are residents who don't want to live in a facility where they might be filmed.

Brendan Blake, representing AARP Arizona, had a different take.

"Choice is at the center of this bill as it relates to the residents and the ability to monitor the care that they receive,'' Blake said.

He also told lawmakers that he and other proponents of monitoring have worked for years to overcome industry objections. For example, he said, what's in SB 1041 includes the power of someone who shares the same room to veto monitoring.

Blake also said the measure spells out that if a live feed requires WiFi or an internet connection, it is the responsibility of the resident or the family. And he brushed aside Hinman's claim that monitoring would impair the dignity of those being monitored.

"We cannot find anything else that is more undignified than being abused or neglected at the hands, in your own room, of the people you have trusted to provide care for you,'' Blake said. He also noted that the monitoring would be limited to a resident's room and not cover areas of a facility where there are others.

Blake said there is nothing radical about the proposal, saying 18 other states already offer similar rights to residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Marie Isaacson lobbies for LeadingAge, which is composed of nonprofit facilities, and questions the need for such a mandate.

She told lawmakers there are more than 2,000 such facilities. And Isaacson said that a survey by the Department of Health Services found that, of those who responded to its voluntary survey, half already allow electronic monitoring.

Nguyen, for his part, said he doesn't understand the objections by the owners and operators of assisted living facilities and nursing homes to simply allow residents to have the right to cameras to monitor their own rooms. He said it's certainly no more of an imposition on their property rights than it is to require things like a fire alarm or a ramp for access.

Yet, Nguyen said, they seem adamant that a mandate to permit monitoring – and leave the decision up to residents – is somehow a more intrusive form of state interference. And he has a theory about why the concern over cameras.

"It captures people who are doing bad things that they shouldn't do,'' Nguyen said. "And it also captures people not doing the things that they also should be doing.''

The measure now goes to the full House. If approved there, it still must go to the Senate, which has not had a chance to review this version of SB 1041.