Hospitals: language assistance services.

(1) Existing law provides for the licensure and regulation by the State Department of Public Health of health facilities, including general acute care hospitals. A violation of these provisions is a crime. Existing law requires those hospitals to adopt and review annually a policy for providing language assistance services to patients with language or communication barriers, as defined. Existing law requires a hospital to annually transmit to the department a copy of its updated policy and to include a description of its efforts to ensure adequate and speedy communication between patients with language or communication barriers and staff. This bill would require a general acute care hospital and the department to make the hospital's updated policy available annually to the public on their respective Internet Web sites. The bill would also require a general acute care hospital to post on its Internet Web site a notice, in English and in the other most commonly spoken languages in the hospital's service area, of the availability of language assistance services. Because a violation of these provisions by a health facility would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.