state laws

The Supreme Court keeps on accepting First Amendment cases—perhaps because among the current Court there is much agreement on the First Amendment, so being down a Justice doesn’t matter. This does not bode well for state and local governments, like North Carolina in this case. For better or worse, this case like Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman, accepted in September, gives the Supreme Court a chance to refine its holding in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona (2015).  

The issue in Packingham v. North Carolina is whether a North Carolina law prohibiting registered sex offenders from accessing commercial social networking websites where the registered sex offender knows minors can create or maintain a profile, violates the First Amendment.

For patients who develop sepsis, the ability of a health professional to recognize it early on can mean the difference between life and death, or between full recovery and permanent organ damage. For doctors and nurses, though, early recognition of this condition (caused by the human body’s response to an infection) can be difficult.

“The symptoms are like those for the flu and many other diseases,” says Kelly Court, chief quality officer at the Wisconsin Hospital Association. “So you need to get the entire clinical team at a hospital to think sepsis when evaluating a patient, because early detection is so important.”

Four years ago, that early detection did not take place in a case that led to the tragic death of a 5-year-old girl in Illinois. The girl, Gabby Galbo, died from sepsis after a tick bite caused a bacterial infection.

Gabby’s Law (SB 2403), signed into law this summer after receiving unanimous legislative approval, puts in place new statewide requirements for hospitals, which will now have to establish and then periodically implement evidence-based sepsis protocols — for example, a process for screening and early recognition, identification of the infectious source, and guidelines for how to administer fluids and deliver antibiotics to patients. Direct-care staff in Illinois’ hospitals will have to receive periodic training on these protocols.

Iowa has joined the growing number of U.S. states that ban life-without-parole sentences for individuals 17 and under. The state Supreme Court issued its ruling in May, arguing that such sentences violate the Iowa Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The decision does not entitle juvenile offenders to parole, but does eliminate “up-front determinations” (namely life-without-parole sentences by a judge). 

Community paramedicine programs — sometimes known as field emergency medical services (EMS) or mobile integrated health care — expand the role of certified paramedics and allow them to provide non-emergency, preventative health care services to patients in their communities.

The expanded functions of a community paramedic can include providing primary care, chronic disease management, mental health and dental care, according to the American Nurses Association. Customarily, the role of a paramedic is to respond in emergency situations only, but the push for an expanded role is gaining momentum — particularly in rural areas that have fewer traditional health care providers.

Some community paramedic programs operate on a small scale without specific statutory authority. However, a handful of state legislatures (Missouri, Nevada and Washington, for example) have passed laws in recent years to authorize these programs on a statewide level.