N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. tit. 12 § 177.2

Current through Register Vol. 46, No. 53, December 31, 2024

Section 177.2 - Definitions

(a) Emergency shall mean an unforeseen event that could not be prudently planned for by a health care employer and does not regularly occur, including an unanticipated staffing emergency.

(b) Health care disaster shall mean a natural or other type of disaster that increases the need for health care personnel, unexpectedly affecting the county in which the nurse is employed or in a contiguous county, as more fully explained in section 177.3 of this Part.

(c) Health care employer shall mean any individual, partnership, association, corporation, limited liability company or any person or group of persons acting directly or indirectly on behalf of or in the interest of the employer, who provides health care services:

(1) in a facility licensed or operated pursuant to article 28 of the Public Health Law, including any facility operated by the State, a political subdivision or a public corporation as defined by section 66 of the General Construction Law; or

(2) in a facility operated by the State, a political subdivision or a public corporation as defined by section 66 of the General Construction Law, operated or licensed pursuant to the Mental Hygiene Law, the Education Law or the Correction Law.

Examples of a health care facility include, but are not limited to, hospitals, nursing homes, outpatient clinics, comprehensive rehabilitation hospitals, residential health care facilities, residential drug and alcohol treatment facilities, adult day health care programs, and diagnostic centers.

(d) Nurse shall mean a registered professional nurse or a licensed practical nurse as defined by article 139 of the Education Law who provides direct patient care, regardless of whether such nurse is employed full-time, part-time, or on a per diem basis. Nurses who provide services to a health care employer through contracts with third party staffing providers such as nurse registries, temporary employment agencies, and the like, or who are engaged to perform services for health care employers as independent contractors shall also be covered by this Part.

(e) On call shall mean when an employee is required to be ready to perform work functions and required to remain on the employer's premises or within a proximate distance, so close thereto that s/he cannot use the time effectively for his or her own purposes. An employee who is not required to remain on the employer's premises or within a proximate distance thereto but is merely required to leave information, at his or her home or with the health care employer, where he or she may be reached is not on call.

(f) Overtime shall mean work hours over and above the nurses's regularly scheduled work hours. Determinations as to what constitutes overtime hours for purposes of this Part shall not limit the nurse's receipt of overtime wages to which the nurse is otherwise entitled.

(g) Patient care emergency shall mean a situation which is unforeseen and could not be prudently planned for, which requires nurse overtime in order to provide safe patient care as more fully explained in section 177.3 of this Part.

(h) Regularly scheduled work hours shall mean the predetermined number of hours a nurse has agreed to work and is normally scheduled to work pursuant to the budgeted hours allocated to the nurse's position by the health care employer.

(1) For purposes of this Part, for full-time nurses, the budgeted hours allocated to the nurses position shall be the hours reflected in the employer's full-time employee (FTE) level for the unit in which the nurse is employed.

(2) If no such allocation system exists, regularly scheduled work hours shall be determined by some other measure generally used by the health care employer to determine when an employee is minimally supposed to work.

(3) The term regularly scheduled work hours shall be interpreted in a manner that is consistent with any relevant collective bargaining agreement and other statutes or regulations governing the hours of work, if any.

(4) Regularly scheduled work hours shall include pre-scheduled on-call time subject to the exceptions set forth in section 177.3(b)(1) of this Part and the time spent for the purpose of communicating shift reports regarding patient status necessary to ensure patient safety.

(5) For a part-time nurse, regularly scheduled work hours mean those hours a part-time nurse is normally scheduled to work pursuant to the employer's budgeted hours allocated. If advance scheduling is not used for part-time nurses, the percentage of full-time equivalent, which shall be established by the health care employer (e.g., a 50 percent part-time employee), shall serve as the measure of regularly scheduled work hours for a part-time nurse.

(6) For per diem, privately contracted, or employment agency nurses, the employment contract and the hours provided therein shall serve as the basis for determining the nurse's regularly scheduled work hours.

N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. Tit. 12 § 177.2