Under existing law, the State Department of Public Health licenses and regulates hospitals, as defined. Violation of these provisions is a crime. Existing law requires hospitals, not less than annually, to conduct a security and safety assessment and, using the assessment, develop a security plan with measures to protect personnel, patients, and visitors from aggressive or violent behavior. Existing law provides that the plan may include, but is not limited to, prescribed considerations. This bill would, instead, require the plan to include these considerations, as well as other considerations prescribed by the bill. It would also require the hospital to adopt specified security policies as part of the plan. The bill would also require the hospital to evaluate and treat an employee who is involved in a violent incident and to provide specified followup care. The bill would prohibit a hospital from prohibiting an employee from, or taking punitive or retaliatory action against an employee for, seeking assistance from local emergency services or law enforcement when a violent incident occurs. Under existing law, an act of assault that results in injury or involves the use of a firearm or other dangerous weapon against on-duty hospital personnel is required to be reported to law enforcement within 72 hours of the occurrence of the incident. This bill would, instead, require reporting to law enforcement within 24 hours. This bill would also require a hospital to report incidents of assault or battery to the department, as specified. This bill would allow the imposition of a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed $100 per day for each day that certain incidents are not reported, as prescribed. The bill would require the department to make an onsite inspection or investigation when it receives a report from a hospital that indicates an ongoing, urgent, or emergent threat of imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm to patient, personnel, or visitors. The bill would require the department to report to the Legislature, as prescribed, beginning on January 1, 2014, and annually thereafter until January 1, 2018, certain information regarding incidents of violence at hospitals. Under existing law, all hospital employees who are regularly assigned to the emergency department are required to receive, on a continuing basis as provided by the security plan, specified training. This bill would require training to be provided annually, and would include in the required training hospital employees who provide direct care to patients. Because this bill expands the definition of a crime, it would impose a state-mandated local program. Under existing law, the Corrections Standards Authority is required to establish minimum standards for state and local correctional facilities. This bill would require the standards to include a safety and security plan to protect health care personnel who provide care to persons confined in state and local correctional facilities, as specified. 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.
Sponsored bills
Existing law, the Medical Practice Act, restricts the employment of licensed physicians and surgeons and podiatrists by a corporation or other artificial legal entity, subject to specified exemptions. Existing law established, until January 1, 2011, a pilot project to allow qualified district hospitals that, among other things, provided more than 50% of patient days to the care of Medicare, Medi-Cal, and uninsured patients, to employ a physician and surgeon, if the hospital did not interfere with, control, or otherwise direct the professional judgment of the physician and surgeon. The pilot project authorized the direct employment of not more than 20 physicians and surgeons by all of those hospitals to provide medically necessary services in rural and medically underserved communities. Existing law imposed specified duties on the Medical Board of California with regard to the pilot project. This bill would, until January 1, 2022, reenact the pilot project to allow all qualified district hospitals to employ not more than 50 physicians and surgeons, under circumstances described above. The bill would require the Medical Board of California to report to the Legislature by October 1, 2020, on the effectiveness of the pilot project. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law provides that any person representing himself or herself as a registered dietitian or dietetic technician shall meet specified requirements and qualifications. This bill would repeal these provisions and enact new provisions providing for the licensing and regulation of registered dietitians by the Dietitians Bureau in the Department of Consumer Affairs, which the bill would create. The bill would specify the qualifications required for registered dietitians and their scope of practice. The bill would specify the qualifications and required supervision for dietetic technicians, registered. The bill would create an advisory committee within the bureau, with 5 members appointed by the Director of Consumer Affairs and the Legislature. The bill would authorize the bureau to impose licensing fees, which would be deposited in the Dietitian Licensing Fund, which the bill would create, and would continuously appropriate those revenues to the bureau. The bill would authorize the bureau to enforce these provisions and would enact other related provisions. The bill would provide that a violation of these provisions is a misdemeanor. By creating a new crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. 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.
Existing law establishes the Medi-Cal program, administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which basic health care services are provided to qualified low-income persons. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid provisions. Under existing law, the department is required to issue each person who is eligible for Medi-Cal, as specified, with a card certifying his or her status, identification number, expiration date, and his or her entitlements, insofar as these do not require specific prior authorization. This bill would require the department to implement a system whereby health care personnel with access to a person's Medi-Cal card are made aware if the person has previously accessed mental health services through the Medi-Cal system.
Existing law requires that child care be provided in 3 stages to recipients of benefits under the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program. The first stage of child care begins upon the entry of a person into the CalWORKs program. The 2nd stage of child care begins when a county determines that the work or approved work activity of the recipient is stable or when a recipient is making the transition off of aid and child care is available through a local stage 2 program. The 3rd stage of child care, which is administered by programs contracting with the State Department of Education, begins when a funded child care space becomes available for the child or children of the eligible CalWORKs recipient. This bill would reappropriate $60,000,000 in unobligated balances appropriated in the Budget Act of 2009 to the State Department of Education for CalWORKs Stage 3 child care services. The bill would also require the State Department of Education to use those funds for families that were receiving, or would have been eligible to receive, CalWORKs Stage 3 child care services, before, on, or after October 31, 2010. The bill would declare that it makes appropriations for the usual and current expenses of the state, thereby taking immediate effect.
The Political Reform Act of 1974 regulates mass mailings, known as slate mailers, that support or oppose multiple candidates or ballot measures for an election. The act requires that each slate mailer identify the slate mailer organization or committee primarily formed to support or oppose one or more ballot measures that is sending the slate mailer, and to contain other specified information in specified formatting. The act requires that each candidate and each ballot measure that has paid to appear in the slate mailer be designated by an asterisk. This bill would instead require that a candidate or ballot measure appearing in the slate mailer be designated by an asterisk if the slate mailer organization or committee primarily formed to support or oppose one or more ballot measures that is sending the slate mailer has received payment to include the candidate or ballot measure in the slate mailer. The bill would also recast the language of the prescribed notice to voters that must be included on a slate mailer. The act also regulates advertisements, which are defined as any general or public advertisement that is authorized and paid for by a person or committee for the purpose supporting or opposing a candidate for elective office or a ballot measure or ballot measures. The act places certain disclosure requirements on advertisements for or against any ballot measure, including that the advertisement disclose any person who has made cumulative contributions of $50,000 or more, as prescribed. The act places more specific disclosure requirements on broadcast or mass mailing advertisements that are paid for by independent expenditures that support or oppose a candidate or ballot measure. This bill would repeal provisions relating to disclosures for advertisements paid for by an independent expenditure and required disclosures of persons who have made cumulative contributions of $50,000 or more. This bill would, instead, impose specified disclosure requirements on radio, television, and video advertisements, and certain mass mailing and print advertisements that support or oppose a candidate or ballot measure or solicit contributions in support of those purposes. The bill would require advertisements that are authorized by a candidate or agent of the candidate to include a statement in which the candidate identifies himself or herself and states that he or she approves the message. The bill would require advertisements that are not authorized by a candidate or an agent of the candidate to disclose, in a prescribed format, the 3 largest identifiable contributors, as defined, of the committee that paid for the advertisement. The bill would require mass mailings or print advertisements that are paid for by certain persons who are not committees to disclose the name of that person as the funder of the mass mailing or print advertisement. The bill would also require that certain committees establish and maintain a committee disclosure Internet Web site, as defined, which discloses the top 5 identifiable contributors and provides a link to the Internet Web site maintained by the Secretary of State for campaign finance disclosures of the committee. The bill would require these advertisements to identify the address for the committee disclosure Internet Web site. Existing law makes a knowing or willful violation of the Political Reform Act of 1974 a misdemeanor and subjects offenders to criminal penalties. This bill would impose a state-mandated local program by creating additional crimes. 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. The Political Reform Act of 1974, an initiative measure, provides that the Legislature may amend the act to further the act's purposes upon a 23 vote of each house and compliance with specified procedural requirements. This bill would declare that it furthers the purposes of the act.
This bill would urge the United States Patent and Trademark Office to place a satellite office in California.
This measure would proclaim January 13, 2012, as Korean-American Day.
This measure would designate that January 16, 2012, be observed as the official memorial of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birth, commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights Movement in changing public policy in California and in the United States of America.
Existing law requires the Department of Food and Agriculture, headed by the Secretary of Food and Agriculture, to promote and protect the agricultural industry of the state. This bill would, until July 1, 2017, create the California Healthy Food Financing Initiative. It would require, by July 1, 2012, the Secretary of Food and Agriculture to prepare recommendations, to be presented upon request to the Legislature, regarding actions that need to be taken to promote food access in the state. The bill would establish the California Healthy Food Financing Initiative Council and would require the council to implement the initiative, as specified. The bill would require the department to establish an advisory group, as specified. The bill would create the California Healthy Food Financing Initiative Fund in the State Treasury, to be comprised of federal, state, philanthropic, and private funds, for the purpose of expanding access to healthy foods in underserved communities and, to the extent practicable, to leverage other funding, as specified. Moneys in the fund would be expended upon appropriation by the Legislature.