Hospitals: seismic safety.

(1) Existing law, the Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Facilities Seismic Safety Act of 1983, establishes, under the jurisdiction of the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, a program of seismic safety building standards for certain hospitals constructed on and after March 7, 1973. Existing law authorizes the office to assess an application fee for the review of facilities design and construction, and requires that full and complete plans be submitted to the office for review and approval. Existing law requires that, after January 1, 2008, any general acute care hospital building that is determined to be a potential risk of collapse or pose significant loss of life be used only for nonacute care hospital purposes, except that the office may grant a 5-year extension under prescribed circumstances. Existing law also allows the office to grant an additional 2-year extension to the January 2008 deadline in specified circumstances. This bill would also permit a hospital to receive the additional 2 year deadline extension if alternative prescribed conditions are met. (2) Under existing law, if an extension is granted, the hospital owner is required to submit periodic reports on compliance. Under existing law, an owner of a general acute care hospital that is classified as a nonconforming Structural Performance Category-1 (SPC-1) building, who has requested an extension of the January 1, 2008, deadline, is required to submit a report with prescribed information no later than June 30, 2011. This bill would, instead, require that the report be submitted by all owners of a general acute care hospital that is classified as a nonconforming SPC-1 building. This bill would make the report due to the office no later than November 1, 2010, and would require annual updates thereafter, as specified. This bill would also prescribe additional information to be included on the report for each building that is planned for retrofit or replacement and for a building or buildings to be removed from acute care service. This bill would require the office to make prescribed information from the reports available on its Internet Web site within 90 days of receipt of the information. This bill would impose on hospitals that have not complied with the reporting requirements a fine of $10 per licensed acute care bed per day, but in no case to exceed $1,000 per day for each SPC-1 building that is not in compliance. This bill would require the penalty to be deposited into the Hospital Building Fund which is a continuous appropriations fund in the State Treasury, as prescribed. (3) Existing law requires the office to submit prescribed information, including earthquake performance categories, to the California Building Standards Commission. This bill would authorize the office to utilize current computer modeling based upon software developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, referred to as Hazards US, for the purpose of determining the structural performance category of general acute care hospital buildings, and would authorize the office to promulgate regulations to implement this provision. The bill would require that specified regulatory submissions made by the office to the California Building Standards Commission be deemed emergency regulations and be adopted as emergency regulations. This bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2013, as prescribed (4) This bill would incorporate additional changes in Section 130060 of the Health and Safety Code proposed by AB 523, that would become operative only if AB 523 and this bill are both chaptered and become effective on or before January 1, 2010, and this bill is chaptered last.