Lead poisoning prevention: laboratory reporting.

Existing law, the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act of 1991, requires the State Department of Public Health to adopt regulations establishing a standard of care at least as stringent as the most recent federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) screening guidelines, whereby all children are evaluated for risk of lead poisoning by health care providers during each child's periodic health assessment. Existing law requires a laboratory that performs a blood lead analysis on a specimen of human blood drawn in California to report specified information to the State Department of Public Health for each analysis on every person tested and requires other specified information to be reported when the laboratory has that information. Existing law authorizes the department to fine a laboratory that knowingly fails to meet the reporting requirements. This bill would, beginning on July 1, 2023, require the laboratory to report additional information, including the National Provider Identifier (NPI) of the health care provider that ordered the analysis, the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) number and the NPI of the laboratory, and the person's race, ethnicity, and pregnancy status. The bill would require a laboratory to request all of the required information from the health care provider who obtained the blood sample or ordered the test, but would waive the laboratory's reporting requirement when the health care provider cannot, or will not, provide the requested information. Existing law requires the laboratory to report within 3 working days if the result of the blood lead analysis is a blood lead level equal to or greater than 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood and within 30 working days if the blood lead level is lower that threshold. This bill would make the threshold for reporting within 3 working days the most recent CDC reference level for an elevated blood lead level. Existing law requires that all information reported be confidential, except that the department is authorized to share the information for the purpose of surveillance, case management, investigation, environmental assessment, environmental remediation, or abatement with the local health department, environmental health agency, or building department, and with the State Department of Health Care Services for the purpose of determining whether children enrolled in Medi-Cal are being screened for lead poisoning and receiving appropriate related services. This bill would authorize the department to share the information for purposes of care coordination as well. The bill would authorize the department to share the information with specified health care providers and with the person to whom the information pertains, with the voluntary written consent of the person to whom the information pertains or the person authorized to give consent on behalf of the individual, and when required by state or federal law, or court order. The bill would also authorize the department to share the information for research, as specified.