An Act concerning information about the availability of beds in certain residential facilities and supplementing Title 30 of the Revised Statutes.

Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

1. a. The Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services in the Department of Human Services shall oversee the development and maintenance of a data dashboard report, which shall collect and track the daily information received pursuant to section 2 of this act about the number of open beds that are available for treatment in each residential facility in the State that provides behavioral health services and receives State or county funding, including, but not limited to, a psychiatric facility, psychiatric unit of a general hospital, short-term care facility, and special psychiatric hospital, as those terms are defined in section 2 of P.L.1987, c.116 (C.30:4-27.2).

b. The information maintained in the data dashboard report shall include, by county:

(1) the address and telephone number of the residential facility;

(2) the type of services provided by the facility;

(3) the licensed bed capacity of the facility; and

(4) the number of open beds that are available for the provision of residential behavioral health services, based on the information received pursuant to section 2 of this act.

c. The information described in subsection b. of this section shall be:

(1) prominently displayed on the website of the department;

(2) made available to the public, upon request, through the Statewide 2-1-1 telephone system; and

(3) made available using any other means that the Commissioner of Human Services deems appropriate.

d. The commissioner is authorized to solicit, receive, and accept grants, funds, or anything of value from any public or private entity and receive and accept contributions of money, property, labor, or any other thing of value from any legitimate source for the purpose of the development and maintenance of a data dashboard report pursuant to this act.

2. Each residential facility in the State that provides behavioral health services and receives State or county funding, as provided for in section 1 of this act, shall submit to the data dashboard report, no less than once a day, information advising of the number of open beds that are available for the provision of residential behavioral health services on that day.

3. This act shall take effect immediately.

STATEMENT

This bill requires the development and maintenance of a data dashboard report, which is to collect and track daily information about the number of open beds that are available for treatment in each residential facility in the State that provides behavioral health services and receives State or county funding, including, but not limited to: a psychiatric facility (a State or county psychiatric hospital or psychiatric unit of a county hospital); psychiatric unit of a general hospital (an inpatient unit restricting services to care of voluntarily admitted persons with mental illness); short-term care facility (an inpatient, community-based facility providing acute care and assessment services); and special psychiatric facility, (a public or private hospital which provides voluntary and involuntary mental health services).

The information in the data dashboard report is to be prominently displayed on the website of the Department of Human Services (DHS), made available to the public, upon request, through the Statewide 2-1-1- telephone system, and made available using any other means that the Commissioner of Human Services deems appropriate.

The Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services in DHS is to oversee the development and maintenance of the data dashboard report, and the commissioner is authorized to solicit funds and accept contributions for the purpose of the development and maintenance of the report.

Each residential facility provided for in the bill is to submit to the data dashboard report, no less than once a day, information advising of the number of open beds that are available.

Based on that daily information, the data dashboard report would include, by county: the address and telephone number of the residential facility; the type of services provided by the facility and its licensed bed capacity; and the number of open beds that are available for the provision of residential behavioral health services on that day.