(1) The department of health, in consultation with the department of social and health services and other relevant participants, shall:

(a) Devise a system that reduces delays between training and testing for home care aides that includes the following:

(i) Developing and implementing a plan to integrate testing into training that allows applicants to test at the same location where they train;

(ii) Allowing remote testing within home care aide training programs immediately or shortly after completion of the program; and

(iii) Determining the benefits and costs of having home care aide training programs authorize applicants to test instead of the department of health;

(b) Examine existing challenges related to a lack of testing sites and develop a plan, including an estimation of costs, to expand testing sites, which shall include the following considerations:

(i) Applicant travel time and availability of testing for comparable professions;

(ii) How many test sites are needed, where these sites should be located, and the best way to establish appropriate partnerships that can lead to new test sites;

(iii) How often test sites should be available to applicants; and

(iv) Whether there are areas of the state where a stipend for travel expenses would be beneficial and appropriate protocols for travel stipends;

(c) Establish performance measures and data collection criteria to monitor the overall length of time between training and testing and the number of available test sites;

(d) Establish accountability mechanisms for the overall training to testing process; and

(e) Establish performance-based contracts for vendors who administer the tests that include the following:

(i) All key performance measures expected, including a definition of what sufficient access to test sites entails; and

(ii) Detailed vendor costs.

(2)(a) When completing the requirements of subsection (1) of this section, the department of health shall ensure that its decisions are informed by existing data on test completion, including passage and failure rates for both parts of the examination.

(b) When conducting the examination under subsection (1)(b) of this section, the department of health shall:

(i) Use various geographic measures, including by county and by zip code; and

(ii) Conduct a survey of all approved testing locations in Washington to determine their current capacity for offering tests and their potential capacity to offer tests if not for the lack of available proctors.

(3) The department of health, in consultation with the department of social and health services and other relevant participants, shall submit to the governor and the appropriate committees of the legislature a preliminary report no later than June 30, 2024, and a final report no later than December 31, 2024, that includes a summary of the work conducted in accordance with the requirements specified in subsection (1) of this section and any recommendations for improvement.

(4) This section expires July 30, 2026.

Finding—2023 c 323: See note following RCW 18.88B.031.