BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                     AB 486


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          Date of Hearing:  May 6, 2015


                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS


                                 Jimmy Gomez, Chair


          AB  
          486 (Bonilla) - As Introduced February 23, 2015


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          |             |Business and Professions       |     |14 - 0       |
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          Urgency:  Yes State Mandated Local Program:  YesReimbursable:   
          No


          SUMMARY:


          This bill modifies requirements as to what must be  
          human-readable, versus machine-readable using barcode medication  
          administration software, for medication labels produced by  








                                                                     AB 486


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          centralized hospital packaging pharmacies (CHPP).


          FISCAL EFFECT:


          Negligible state fiscal effect. 


          COMMENTS:


          1)Purpose. According to the author, this is a cleanup measure to  
            AB 377 (Solorio), Chapter 687, Statutes of 2012.  That bill  
            authorized CHPPs, central pharmacies that can provide greater  
            efficiency, lower costs, and a higher degree of automation by  
            serving a number of hospitals in a hospital system.  Due to  
            variation in technology, not all CHPPs are able to comply with  
            the various specific requirements in current law, which has  
            forced the Board of Pharmacy to issue waivers.  This bill  
            attempts to remedy this problem by ensuring the information  
            necessary to protect patient safety is still included on the  
            label, but structuring requirements such that current systems  
            can comply.   


          2)Prior Legislation.  





             a)   AB 2757 (Bocanegra) of 2014, was substantially similar  
               to this bill.  The bill passed the Senate Committee on  
               Business, Professions and Economic Development but was not  
               heard in the Assembly.











                                                                     AB 486


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             b)   AB 377 (Solorio), Chapter 687, Statutes of 2012,  
               authorized a centralized hospital packaging pharmacy to  
               prepare medications, by performing specified functions for  
               administration only to inpatients within its own general  
               acute care hospital, or one or more general acute care  
               hospitals under the same ownership and located within 75  
               miles of each other.



          Analysis Prepared by:Lisa Murawski / APPR. / (916)  
          319-2081