(1) The Department of Human Services shall develop or obtain, maintain and use, in collaboration with residential care facilities, an objective, technology-based, acuity-based staffing tool. The department may use the tool to:

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(a) Evaluate whether a residential care facility has qualified awake caregivers sufficient in number to meet the 24-hour scheduled and unscheduled needs of each resident; and

(b) Assess the number of direct care staff hours required by a particular residential care facility to meet each resident’s scheduled and unscheduled needs.

(2) The acuity-based staffing tool shall be made available to residential care facilities to:

(a) Enable the residential care facilities to assess their staffing needs and determine whether they have a sufficient number of qualified awake caregivers to meet the 24-hour scheduled and unscheduled needs of each resident;

(b) Communicate the required staffing needs and each residential care facility’s staffing plan to residents, their family members and other persons; and

(c) Demonstrate to the department that the residential care facility’s staffing plan meets the 24-hour scheduled and unscheduled needs of each resident.

(3) The department is not required to use the tool described in this section in every circumstance in which residential care facility staffing is evaluated, but the department must use the tool in collaboration with the facility if the department is considering imposing a staffing requirement on a facility as part of a licensing condition and the department and the facility are not in agreement about whether staffing meets the residents’ scheduled and unscheduled needs or the staffing standards proposed by the department. [2017 c.679 § 24]