BILL NUMBER: AB 684	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Bonilla

                        FEBRUARY 25, 2015

   An act to amend Section 4200.3 of the Business and Professions
Code, relating to healing arts.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 684, as introduced, Bonilla. Pharmacy.
   Existing law, the Pharmacy Law, provides for the licensure and
regulation of pharmacists by the California State Board of Pharmacy
within the Department of Consumer Affairs. Existing law authorizes
the board to license as a pharmacist an applicant who meets specified
requirements, including passage of the North American Pharmacist
Licensure Examination. Existing law requires the examination process
to meet specified standards and federal guidelines and requires the
board to terminate use of that examination if the department
determines that the examination fails to meet those standards.
Existing law requires the board to report to the now obsolete Joint
Committee on Boards, Commissions, and Consumer Protection and the
department specified examination pass rate information.
   This bill would instead require the board to report that pass rate
information to the appropriate policy committees of the Legislature
and the department. The bill would also make nonsubstantive changes
to those provisions.
   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.  Section 4200.3 of the Business and Professions Code is
amended to read:
   4200.3.  (a) The examination process shall be regularly reviewed
pursuant to Section 139.
   (b) The examination process shall meet the standards and
guidelines set forth in the Standards for Educational and
Psychological Testing and the  Federal   federal
 Uniform Guidelines  for   on 
Employee Selection Procedures. The board shall work with the Office
of Professional Examination Services of the department or with an
equivalent organization who shall certify at minimum once every five
years that the examination process meets these national testing
standards. If the department determines that the examination process
fails to meet these standards, the board shall terminate its use of
the North American  Pharmacy   Pharmacist 
Licensure Examination and shall use only the written and practical
examination developed by the board.
   (c) The examination shall meet the mandates of subdivision (a) of
Section 12944 of the Government Code.
   (d) The board shall work with the Office of Professional
Examination Services or with an equivalent organization to develop
the state jurisprudence examination to ensure that applicants for
licensure are evaluated on their knowledge of applicable state laws
and regulations.
   (e) The board shall annually publish the pass and fail rates for
the pharmacist's licensure examination administered pursuant to
Section 4200, including a comparison of historical pass and fail
rates before utilization of the North American Pharmacist Licensure
Examination.
   (f)    (1)  The board shall report to the
 Joint Committee on Boards, Commissions, and Consumer
Protection   appropriate policy committees of the
Legislature  and the department as part of its next scheduled
review, the pass rates of applicants who sat for the national
examination compared with the pass rates of applicants who sat for
the prior state examination. This report shall be a component of the
evaluation of the examination process that is based on
psychometrically sound principles for establishing minimum
qualifications and levels of competency. 
   (2) This subdivision shall become inoperative on January 1, 2020,
pursuant to Section 10231.5 of the Government Code.