Legislation aimed at improving oversight at long-term care facilities and memory care units on Monday passed the state Senate and has moved on to the Ways and Means Committee in Oregon.

The bill was introduced after reports of serious neglect, including residents wandering unsupervised, unsanitary conditions and fatalities.

If signed into law, immediate investigations within 24 hours of a complaint involving death due to abuse or neglect would be mandated. Staff sufficiency assessments would also be required, as well as on-site inspections within 90 to 120 days of issuing a new facility license.

Also, operators would need to notify residents’ contacts when a facility violates health policies or is put on an oversight watchlist.

“The policy question at hand is what the appropriate threshold is for when residents should be proactively notified about regulatory actions against a facility and the manner in which those notifications should occur,” Libby Batlan, senior vice president of government relations for the Oregon Health Care Association, said in March.

The association also raised concerns about the legislation’s feasibility, especially when it comes to new management regulations; the final bill gained broad support, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

Requirements in the bill “are not reasonable, and they do not contemplate the realities and nuances of current regulations,” the OHCA said in a statement.

OHCA also expressed concern around an amendment which would remove an option to bring in a management company within the first six months after facility purchase, especially if a new owner or licensee lacks prior operating experience. This amendment was proposed but not adopted.

Still, legislators said the bill is a way to prevent more tragedies within the state’s nursing homes. As is, the legislation strikes a balance between critics’ concerns while adding input from the bill’s advocates, according to the Chronicle.

“These people can’t wait any longer. We need to have our inspectors out there,” Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, said in a statement. “We need them to be enforcing, and we need that education and transparency.”