BILL NUMBER: AB 574	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Patterson

                        FEBRUARY 24, 2015

   An act to amend Section 1255.5 of the Health and Safety Code,
relating to health facilities.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 574, as introduced, Patterson. General acute care hospitals:
cardiac catheterization.
   Existing law provides for the licensure and regulation of health
facilities, including general acute care hospitals, administered by
the State Department of Public Health. Existing law authorizes the
department to approve, as prescribed, a general acute care hospital
to offer cardiac surgery and cardiac catheterization services, as
defined, if specified requirements are met. A violation of these
provisions is a crime.
   This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to those
provisions.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  Section 1255.5 of the Health and Safety Code is amended
to read:
   1255.5.  For purposes of Section 1255, the following definitions
apply:
   (a) "Cardiac catheterization" includes an intravascular insertion
of a catheter into the heart for the primary definition and diagnosis
of an anatomic cardiac lesion. For the purposes of this definition,
the insertion of a Swan-Ganz thermodilution cardiac output catheter,
a venous line, and a temporary pacemaking electrode catheter are
excluded.
   (b) "Cardiac surgery" means surgery on the heart or great vessels
requiring a thoracotomy and extracorporeal circulation.
   (c) "Cardiovascular surgery service" means a program of a general
acute care hospital  which   that  has the
capability of performing cardiac catheterizations and cardiac surgery
as defined in this section. Under no circumstances shall there exist
in a general acute care hospital a cardiac surgery service without a
cardiac catheterization laboratory service.
   (d) "Cardiac catheterization laboratory service" means a program
of a general acute care hospital  which   that
 has the capability of performing cardiac catheterization.
Cardiac catheterization laboratory service does not include pediatric
cardiac catheterization laboratory service.
   (e) "Pediatric cardiac surgery service" means a program of a
general acute care hospital  which   that 
has the capability of performing cardiac catheterization and cardiac
surgery, as defined in this section, for the diagnosis and treatment
of congenital defects in children. Cardiac catheterization for
pediatric patients shall be performed only in a general acute care
hospital that has the capability to perform cardiac surgery on
pediatric patients.
   (f) "Intensive care newborn nursery services" means the provision
of comprehensive and intensive care for all contingencies of the
newborn infant, including intensive, intermediate, and continuing
care. Policies, procedures, and space requirements for intensive,
intermediate, and continuing care services shall be based upon the
standards and recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics
Guidelines for Perinatal Care, 1983.