The Department of Health has issued a Dear Administrator Letter (DAL) related to the new emergency regulation – adopted on July 21 – creating personal protection equipment (PPE) requirements for hospitals and nursing homes.
The letter serves as reminder of regulatory requirements and creates a process for hospitals to seek additional time to ask for an extension, or to file for an extension.
The emergency regulation allows the Department to grant an extension of the deadline to October 30, 2020, at its sole and exclusive discretion where the hospital demonstrates, to the Commissioner’s satisfaction, that:
- the hospital’s inability to meet the deadline is solely attributable to supply chain issues that are beyond the hospital’s control and purchasing PPE at market rates would facilitate price gouging by PPE vendors; or
- the 7-day rolling average of new COVID-19 infections in New York State remains below 1.5% of the total seven-day rolling average of COVID-19 tests performed over the same period; and there are 10 or less states in the United States that have a 7-day rolling average of new COVID-19 infections exceeding 5k cases.
Should your hospital need additional time to consider filing for an extension, please email your request to the Hospital division at hospinfo@health.ny.gov. The Department will consider these requests until September 14, 2020.