Services for people with dementia at assisted living facilities will have to meet new state standards across Washington under a law Gov. Bob Ferguson signed on Wednesday.

Senate Bill 5337, would require assisted living facilities to be certified by July 1, 2026, to care for people with dementia. This certificate is intended to help ensure the health and safety of residents, transparency for families, and appropriate training for staff.

The Department of Social and Health Services would be required to create, manage and enforce the certification process.

This bill “brings a baseline level of consistency to the definition for memory care,” said Cathy MacCaul, advocacy director at AARP.

Facilities do not have to use terms such as “memory care facility” or “specialized dementia care” to be considered a memory care facility.

Under the new certification, facilities would be required to maintain staff onsite 24 hours a day and provide staff with at least six hours of continuing education.

A publicly available list of certified assisted living facilities specializing in memory care or that have memory care units would have to be maintained by the Department of Social and Health Services. The department would also conduct regular inspections to ensure the facilities comply with state law. Facilities that do not comply could face civil penalties.

Memory care or specialized dementia care services vary across the 237 assisted living facilities in Washington, according to an informal study by the state’s Dementia Action Collaborative in 2021.

This can make it difficult for individuals and families to understand the services and staffing that facilities offer.

“If a facility wants to say that they’re providing memory care, they have to meet just some basic requirements,” MacCaul said.

MacCaul said the bill was modeled after Medicaid definitions to ensure consistency.

Older adults could outnumber children under age 18 for the first time in U.S. history by 2034, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections.

“We have to shift the way we think about all of our systems and make sure that we have adequate consumer protections, consumer awareness and transparency,” MacCaul said.

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