California Legislature—2013–14 Regular Session

Assembly Bill No. 852

Introduced by Assembly Member Quirk

February 21, 2013

An act to add Section 129788 to the Health and Safety Code, relating to health facilities.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

AB 852, as introduced, Quirk. Skilled nursing facility construction, alteration, or addition: review.

Existing law, the Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Facilities Seismic Safety Act of 1983, requires design and construction standards for hospital buildings that house patients who have less than the capacity of normally healthy persons to protect themselves. Existing law also requires that those standards specify that hospitals must be reasonably capable of providing services to the public after a disaster.

Existing law requires the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) to approve or reject all plans for the construction or alteration of a hospital building. Existing law specifically requires the office, contingent upon an appropriation in the annual Budget Act, to establish a program for training fire and life safety officers to facilitate the timely performance of the office’s duties and responsibilities relating to the review of plans and specifications pertaining to the design and observation of construction of hospital buildings, as specified. Existing law authorizes the office to establish other training programs as necessary to ensure that a sufficient number of qualified persons are available to facilitate the timely performance of the office’s duties and responsibilities, as specified.

This bill would set specific OSHPD review and approval timeframes for skilled nursing facility construction, alteration, or addition and would authorize the office to assess a reasonable fee for this review. The bill would authorize the office to seek outside assistance through contracts with qualified professional architectural or engineering firms to meet the review turnaround times required by this bill.

Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: no.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.  

The Legislature finds and declares all of the
following:

(a) A variety of factors have contributed to making health care
construction costs in California among the highest in the nation.
The costs are driven by the escalating price of raw materials, high
demand for skilled labor, and the complexity of design, plan
review, and approval of skilled nursing facility construction.

(b) Skilled nursing facilities are licensed health care facilities
that care for the state’s most fragile and vulnerable citizens.

(c) The physical infrastructure and related systems of these
licensed health facilities are governed by building and fire and life
safety code requirements regulated by the Office of Statewide
Health Planning and Development, the Office of the State Fire
Marshal, and the State Department of Public Health.

(d) As the industry moves to update the aging health care
infrastructure, incorporate advances in medical technology,
implement a modern health care delivery system, and improve
electronic medical records systems, health care construction activity
will increase to unseen levels, creating additional economic
pressure on the skilled nursing and construction industry.

(e) Licensed health care facilities are required to go through a
building application and plan check process under the jurisdiction
of the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development.

(f) This process is bureaucratically efficient, but is subject to
inherent delays impacting timely approvals of projects. Although
the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development has
developed internal policies that set timeframes for plan review and
approval, these policies are targets rather than enforceable
requirements.

(g) Improving the efficiency of health care building plan review
and construction efforts will not only reduce the time to design,
review, and complete facility construction, but also lower the cost
of the project and reduce overall cost pressures on the health care
system, allowing more resources to be directed to direct patient
services.

(h) Therefore, it is the intent of the Legislature to codify the
timeframes and due dates for completion by the Office of Statewide
Health Planning and Development of the review of facility
construction documents and to require the office to notify
applicants of the anticipated date the review will be completed and
returned to them.

SEC. 2.  

Section 129788 is added to the Health and Safety Code,
to read:

129788.  

(a) Documents submitted to the office for new
construction of, alteration of, or additions to, health facilities
licensed pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 1250, shall be
reviewed and approved within the timeframes established by this
section.

(b) Upon receipt of the documents submitted pursuant to
subdivision (a), each submittal shall be logged in by the office and
given an preliminary review within 48 hours by architects,
engineers, and fire and life safety officers of the office to determine
if the submittal is complete.

(c) For projects not qualifying for rapid review under Section
129856, the Facilities Development Division shall meet the
following timeframes:

(1) First review of new projects and deferred items shall be
completed within 30 days.

(2) Backchecks shall be completed within 15 days.

(3) Amended construction documents shall be completed within
15 days.

(d) New projects that qualify for review by the Rapid Review
Unit shall be completed within 15 business days. Projects qualify
if they are new projects up to a maximum estimated construction
cost between one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) and one
hundred seventy-five thousand dollars ($175,000), dependent upon
the unit’s fluctuating workload. Rapid review does not apply to
any of the following:

(1) Existing projects that were initially reviewed by a regional
office, including backchecks, post approval documents (PADs),
and deferred items (DI’s).

(2) Projects requiring an alternate method of compliance.

(3) Projects having equipment missing required project numbers
for special seismic certification.

(e) For projects that include primary gravity or lateral load
elements or systems, structural shall be completed within 30 days
for first reviews and 15 days for deferred item reviews. Backchecks
for these projects shall be completed within 15 days.

(f) The review schedules for managed projects will be negotiated
between the office and the applicants.

(g) The office shall charge a reasonable fee for the review and
approval of plans submitted pursuant to this subdivision. This fee
shall be based on the estimated cost, but shall not exceed the
reasonable cost of the entire phased review and approval process
for those plans.

(h) The project cost threshold under subdivision (a) of Section
129880 shall be increased to one hundred thousand dollars
($100,000) without regard to the cost of equipment or other items
not related to the actual repair or construction costs.

(i) In order to meet the review turnaround times required by this
section, the office may seek outside assistance through contracts
with qualified professional architectural or engineering firms.