BILL ANALYSIS Ó SB 289 Page 1 Date of Hearing: August 8, 2012 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Felipe Fuentes, Chair SB 289 (Hernández) - As Amended: August 6, 2012 Policy Committee: HealthVote:16-0 Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: No Reimbursable: No SUMMARY This bill expands the number of, and further specifies, entities that can be approved by the Department of Public Health to offer training in clinical laboratory science. FISCAL EFFECT Negligible state fiscal effect. COMMENTS 1)Rationale . The author believes this bill will expand the number of clinical laboratory scientist (CLS) training opportunities, and allow entities to spread the high cost of training among a number of sites. 2)Background . A CLS is a healthcare professional who performs laboratory analyses in a clinical laboratory using samples from the human body. CLSs work in hospitals, private clinical labs and doctor's offices, as well as research labs. Licensure requires a Bachelor's degree that includes specific coursework, a one-year internship in an approved clinical training program, and passage of a written exam. A recent white paper produced by the Healthcare Laboratory Workforce Initiative, an effort spearheaded by California hospitals, cites a number of studies pointing to dramatic and growing shortages of CLS personnel. The paper cites a dearth of training programs and their lack of capacity as a major barrier to producing a greater supply of CLSs. Under current law, CDPH Lab Field Services (LFS) is authorized to approve programs seeking to provide instruction in clinical SB 289 Page 2 laboratory science. Most training programs are administered by institutes of higher education, but some are run by hospitals or laboratory companies. Programs administered by colleges and universities are generally affiliated with a number of training sites such as private and hospital-based clinical labs. Each programs and each training site must be approved by LFS. LFS indicates many training sites are approved to train far more CLS trainees than they actually train at any given time. Training sites have cited the complexity and expense of running an approved training program as a barrier to increasing capacity for training large numbers of CLSs. Sites often hire CLS trainees after they complete training and gain licensure. For clinical labs that provide training, there are significant costs and limited incentives to train numbers of CLSs that exceed site-specific workforce needs. Programs indicate CLS training programs can cost $55,000 to $110,000 per year per student. Training programs indicate a provision that exempted nationally accredited schools from obtaining approval for each clinical training site, which was removed from the bill in the Assembly Health committee, would have streamlined the development of a "consortium" approach whereby programs would gain the flexibility to divvy up training modules among multiple sites. Programs maintain it is difficult to gain LFS approval for novel training programs that coordinate training among multiple sites, even though LFS is not prohibited by law or regulation from approving such programs. Analysis Prepared by : Lisa Murawski / APPR. / (916) 319-2081