What Laura’s Law Means for emergency rooms in Massachusetts. The hospital signage and safety legislation proposed as a response to the terrible de@th of Laura Levis in 2016 is now law, and adjustments must be enacted before the end of the year.
Massachusetts hospitals will soon be required to adjust their emergency rooms to make locating them simpler for people in need.
Levis, then 34 years old and suffering from an asthma attack, went to a hospital in Somerville in 2016, but she was unable to locate the door to the emergency room while she was there and in her condition of panic.
Until we find a new lead, we will keep looking. While you wait, consider these potential top-notch reads about Massachusetts:
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Peter DeMarco, whose wife Laura Levis di*d in September 2016 from an asthma att@ck outside Somerville Hospital, revealed the new laws on Thursday at a press conference in the State House.
At about 4 a.m., Levis walked to the hospital, where she climbed a hill to reach the emergency room. Neither was obvious. The one she approached, however, was closed.
When she dialed 911, several dispatchers took her call. In a recording of one of these calls, she can be heard gasping for air and expressing her fear that she is dy!ng from an asthma att@ck. Surveillance cameras recorded the sequence of events.
The heartbreaking surveillance footage showed her struggling to go inside, but it was too late for her to be saved when the paramedics found her. She passed away after collapsing just a few steps from medical assistance.
Since then, her husband, Peter DeMarco, has advocated for legislators to act appropriately.
DeMarco said:
There wasn’t a sign for Laura to have followed.The simplest, the most basic of elements wasn’t there.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is responsible for overseeing the implementation of statewide standards that will require hospitals to improve their lighting, signage, wayfinding, and monitoring to meet the criteria.
DeMarco, a former journalist, and Boston Globe correspondent, shifted gears and became an activist after Levis’s death. Over the course of four years, he worked to get a new state law passed, which resulted in the regulations; he hoped they would prevent another person from dying while waiting for medical assistance outside of a hospital.
Video intercoms enabling people to call for help from outside an ER are also required by the state Department of Public Health, along with signs, lights, and directions from all entry points leading directly to the emergency department entrances.
Massachusetts will have to change their room’s signage and other essential details. A related tweet by WCVB-TV Boston has been linked below for your convenience:
How Mass. emergency rooms will change with Laura's Law https://t.co/I25d8neyin
— WCVB-TV Boston (@WCVB) April 28, 2023
They were finalized last June, but it wasn’t until this month that DPH issued a clarification to hospitals. In a statement released on Thursday, Somerville Hospital, a member of Cambridge Health Alliance, confirmed that it had participated in the working group and provided input that had been used to shape the new laws.
It claims to have adjusted the new standards, such as installing blue emergency call stations with video capability in strategic locations like parking garages and main entrances.
We will continue our search till we discover something new. Until then, here are what may be considered some of the best articles to read on Massachusetts:
The overarching goal of these standards is to guarantee that all patients in need can reach emergency rooms without any problems.
Hospitals will have until the end of the year to implement adjustments, which include installing intercoms at doors, erecting improved emergency room signs, enhancing lighting, and assigning addresses to emergency rooms so that they can be readily identified using a GPS.
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