Amended in Assembly April 5, 2016

California Legislature—2015–16 Regular Session

Assembly Bill No. 2425

Introduced by Assembly Member Brown

February 19, 2016

An act to add Article 7 (commencing with Section 116090.5) to Chapter 5 of Part 10 of Division 104 of the Health and Safety Code, relating to public health.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

AB 2425, as amended, Brown. Public health: incident site reports.

Existing law establishes the State Department of Public Health in state government. Existing law vests within the department certain duties and powers to protect and preserve the public health. begin delete Existing law establishes the Emergency Medical Services Authority in state government. end delete

This bill would require the State Department of Public Health begin delete and the Emergency Medical Services Authority to, by regulation, adopt standards and protocols to end delete begin insert to collaborate with representatives of various groups and adopt, on or before June 1, 2018, standards and protocols that end insert establish a uniform incident site report requirement for purposes of collecting statewide information on unintentional injury incidents. The bill would require those begin delete regulations end delete begin insert standards and protocols end insert to be implemented on a statewide basis by every county, as prescribed. begin insert The bill would require the department to periodically reconvene the representatives, when necessary, to modify the standards and protocols. end insert

By imposing additional duties on local entities, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to these statutory provisions.

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

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

begin insert

begin insert SECTION 1. end insert   

end insert

begin insert (a) end insert begin insert   end insert begin insert The Legislature finds and declares all of the
following: end insert

begin insert

(1) Data provided by the State Department of Public Health
and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows
unintentional injuries are the leading cause of hospitalization and
death for California’s children and youth from one to 19, inclusive,
years of age and the leading cause of injury-related death for
babies and infants under one year of age.

end insert begin insert

(2) Unintentional injury has persistently been the leading cause
of death and hospitalization for California’s children and youth
for more than two decades. The State Department of Public Health
and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show
that from 2003 to 2013, inclusive, unintentional injuries caused
the death of nearly 10,000 California children and youth,
hospitalized another 240,000, and sent more than 4 million others
to the emergency room.

end insert begin insert

(3) The State Department of Public Health and the national
Children’s Safety Network report that in 2012, childhood
unintentional injury cost California’s health care system over six
hundred seventeen million dollars ($617,000,000) in medical costs
and more than three billion four hundred million dollars
($3,400,000,000) in medical and wage loss costs combined because
of parent and guardian time off work caring for an injured child
or dealing with the death of a child due to unintentional injury.

end insert begin insert

(4) The vast majority of unintentional injuries are predictable
and preventable.

end insert begin insert

(5) The year 2016 is the start of a statewide campaign to make
unintentional injury incidents a rare, and not a common,
occurrence across the state in order to better protect the health
and well-being of all California children and youth.

end insert begin insert

(b) (1) It is the intent of the Legislature that the State
Department of Public Health take the lead role in collaborating
with representatives from other health and safety state and local
agencies, first responders, law enforcement, public health experts,
and childhood injury prevention experts to do all of the following:

end insert begin insert

(A) Establish statewide best practice guidelines, standards, and
incident site information collection tools to help collect data and
information at the site of an unintentional injury involving a child
or youth between zero and 19, inclusive, years of age.

end insert begin insert

(B) Aggregate statewide incident site data to better understand
the underlying cause of, and details about, unintentional injury
incidents.

end insert begin insert

(2) The goal is to provide more incident detail information to
help determine the best preventative strategies for eliminating
childhood unintentional injuries with an initial focus on vehicle,
bicycle, and pedestrian crashes, drowning, burns, poisoning,
suffocation, falls, nontraffic vehicle incidents, and sports-related
traumatic brain injuries.

end insert

begin delete SECTION 1. end delete

begin insert SEC. 2. end insert   

Article 7 (commencing with Section 116090.5) is added
to Chapter 5 of Part 10 of Division 104 of the Health and Safety
Code, to read:

 

Article 7.  Incident Site Reports begin insert Standards and Protocols end insert

 

116090.5.  

(a)  begin insert (1) end insert begin insert   end insert On or before June 1, 2018, the begin delete departments end delete
begin insert State Department of Public Health end insert shall, by regulation, adopt
standards and protocols to establish a uniform incident site report
requirement for purposes of collecting statewide information on
unintentional injury incidents.

begin insert

(2) The standards and protocols shall be developed in
collaboration with representatives from other health and safety
state and local agencies, first responders, fire agencies, law
enforcement agencies, public health experts, and childhood injury
prevention experts in order for the department to understand the
details at incident sites for various types of unintentional injury.

end insert begin insert

(3) The department shall periodically reconvene these
representatives, when necessary, to modify the standards and
protocols.

end insert

(b) The begin delete regulations end delete begin insert standards and protocols end insert adopted by the
begin delete departments end delete begin insert department end insert shall be implemented on a statewide basis
by every county in the State of California for use by begin delete first
responders. end delete begin insert the appropriate local reporting entities identified in
the standards and protocols. end insert

(c) The begin delete regulations end delete begin insert standards and protocols end insert shall, at a minimum,
include the following:

(1) A requirement begin delete that, upon responding to an incident, a first
responder prepare and provide an incident site report to its county end delete
begin insert that a reporting entity utilize an incident site reporting best
practices form and incident site investigation protocol, specific to
each type of unintentional injury, to report information to existing
local, regional, and statewide data systems and to the local end insert health
department.

(2) A requirement that the county health department be
responsible for submitting the data received pursuant to paragraph
(1) to the state’s begin delete EPICenter end delete begin insert EpiCenter end insert data system, no later than
60 days after receipt of the incident site report.

(d) For purposes of this section, the following definitions shall
have the following meanings:

(1)  begin delete “Departments” end delete begin insert “Department” end insert means the State Department
of Public begin delete Health and the Emergency Medical Services Authority. end delete

begin insert Health. end insert

begin delete

(2) “First responder” includes, but is not limited to, every local
law enforcement entity, fire department, and any other first
responder or entity that arranges for, or provides, emergency
medical services within its boundaries, including paramedic
services.

end delete begin insert

(2) “Reporting entity” means the reporting entity identified in
the standards and protocols developed by the State Department
of Public Health.

end insert

(3) “Incident site reports” or “incident” relates to, among others,
site reports or incidents that involve unintentional injuries from
drownings, near drownings, burns, window falls, bicycle crashes,
pedestrian crashes, sleep suffocation, kids left in cars, vehicle
backovers, vehicle frontovers, begin insert sports-related activities, end insert and
poisoning.

begin delete SEC. 2. end delete

begin insert SEC. 3. end insert   

If the Commission on State Mandates determines that
this act contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement to
local agencies and school districts for those costs shall be made
pursuant to Part 7 (commencing with Section 17500) of Division
4 of Title 2 of the Government Code.