The New Jersey Department of Health’s (Department) Division of HIV, STD, and TB Services is proposing New Rules at N.J.A.C. 8:67 entitled, “Expedited Partner Therapy.” These rules would establish standards for health care professionals to provide “expedited partner therapy” (EPT) and implement N.J.S.A. 26:4-48.2. EPT is a harm reduction practice by which a health care professional, who diagnoses a patient as having a sexually transmitted infection (STI), provides treatment for the patient’s recent sexual partners without first conducting an examination of the partners.
A health care professional provides EPT by issuing a prescription for appropriate antibiotic drugs in each of the patient’s partners’ names, if known, or, if the patient does not know or declines to provide partners’ names, then in the name of “expedited partner therapy.” In the alternative, the health care professional can dispense medication to the patient to give to the patient’s partners for their use. The health care professional then gives the prescriptions or the medications, and certain written information and guidance materials, to the patient and requests that the patient give these to the patient’s sexual partners and advise the sexual partners of the importance of seeking clinical treatment for the STI from a health care professional. The patient, in turn, delivers the information and the prescriptions or medications to the partners. This enables the partners to immediately begin treatment by having the prescriptions filled and taking the dispensed medications, without having to await the scheduling of appointments with the partners’ own healthcare professionals for diagnosis and treatment of their likely infection with the STI.
A notice of proposal appears in the May 16, 2022 issue of the New Jersey Register. Interested individuals may gain free on-line access to the New Jersey Administrative Code and the New Jersey Register at http://lexisnexis.com/njoal, courtesy of LexisNexis®.
The Department will accept written comments on the proposal during a period of public comment, which begins on May 16, 2022 and ends on July 15, 2022.
Individuals wishing to comment on the proposal must submit written comments on or before July 15, 2022 either (1) electronically at http://www.nj.gov/health/legal/ecomments.shtml or (2) by regular mail postmarked on or before July 15, 2022 to Joy L. Lindo, Director, Office of Legal and Regulatory Compliance, New Jersey Department of Health, PO Box 360, Trenton, NJ 08625-0360.
Address correspondence sent by Courier or Hand Delivery Service to: Joy L. Lindo, Director, Office of Legal and Regulatory Compliance, New Jersey Department of Health, 55 North Willow Street, Trenton, NJ 08625. All hard copy correspondence must be marked as having been received by the carrier of record on or before July 15, 2022. The Department does not accept facsimiles as official comments on the notice of proposal.
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