Amended in Assembly May 31, 2016

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 begin delete health: incident site reports. end delete begin insert health: unintentional injuries. end insert

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.

This bill would require the State Department of Public Health to begin delete collaborate with representatives of various groups and adopt, end delete begin insert develop, end insert on or before June 1, 2018, begin insert a state data collection plan and uniform end insert standards and protocols begin delete that establish a uniform incident site report requirement end delete for purposes of collecting statewide information on unintentional injury begin delete incidents. The bill would require those standards and protocols to be implemented on a statewide basis by every county, as prescribed. The bill would require the department to periodically reconvene the representatives, when necessary, to modify the standards and protocols. end delete begin insert incidents, as specified. The bill would specify that its provisions not be construed to require data collection beyond that required by existing law. end insert

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

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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.

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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.

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Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program:  begin delete yes end delete begin insert no end insert .

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

SECTION 1.  

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

(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.

(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.

(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.

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

(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.

(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:

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(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 delete begin delete

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

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(2)

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(A) Identify the top 10 leading causes of unintentional
life-threatening injury, whether serious or critical, involving
California children and youth between zero and 19 years of age,
inclusive.

end insert begin insert

(B) Identify the most important sources of data for those causes
of unintentional injury identified in subparagraph (A), and develop
a plan for tracking that data in the measurement of prevention
policies, programs, and strategies to decrease the number and
severity of unintentional injury incidents in California, involving
children and youth between zero and 19 years of age, inclusive.

end insert begin insert

(C) Identify whether the data sources identified in subparagraph
(B) are already collected in an existing data system, and, if so,
whether that system is a sufficiently efficient means of that
collection. If the information identified in subparagraph (B) is not
already collected, recommend how best to gather the missing
information. If a jurisdiction or entity has developed a method of
collecting the information identified in subparagraph (B) that is
sufficiently efficient and informative, determine how best to apply
and communicate it throughout California in a prudent manner.

end insert begin insert

(D) Use the information gathered in subparagraphs (A), (B),
and (C) to create a state plan for increasing, in a nonduplicative
and cost-efficient manner, an unintentional injury incident
reporting information system to accomplish the substantial
decrease in the number and severity of unintentional injury of
California’s children and youth between zero and 19 years of age,
inclusive.

end insert begin insert

(E) Include in the state plan recommendations on how to
aggregate and correlate data regionally and statewide to inform
our understanding of underlying causes of serious unintentional
child injury.

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(2) It is the intent of the Legislature in enacting this act to create
a state plan focused on unintentional injury incident site reporting.
The purpose of this act is to provide guidance in the development
of a statewide plan. It is also the intent of the Legislature in
enacting this act to utilize current data collection systems where
available and to not disrupt current data collection or service
provision relevant to trauma and first responder emergency
medical services. The purpose of this act is to develop improved
ongoing information to facilitate prevention of unintentional injury
causing the serious injury or death of California’s children and
youth between zero and 19 years of age, inclusive.

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begin insert (3) end insert  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.

SEC. 2.  

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 Standards and Protocols

 

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116090.5.  

(a) (1) On or before June 1, 2018, the State
Department of Public Health 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.

(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.

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

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

(c) The standards and protocols shall, at a minimum, include
the following:

(1) A requirement 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 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 EpiCenter 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) “Department” means the State Department of Public Health.

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

(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, sports-related activities, and
poisoning.

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begin insert 116090.5. end insert   

(a) On or before June 1, 2018, the State Department
of Public Health shall develop the following:

(1) A state data collection plan focused on the 10 leading causes
of death and hospitalizations due to injuries involving children
and youth between zero and 19 years of age, inclusive.

(A) The plan shall identify the incident site attributes, including
environmental factors, situational variables, and special inherent
risks that would better inform California’s unintentional injury
prevention policies, programs, and strategies.

(B) The plan shall include recommendations for data collection
and evaluation, including additions to the existing data sources,
and continued prudent maintenance of data currently collected.

(C) The department shall periodically reconvene practitioners
and experts to update the plan and make modifications to address
evolving dangers, as needed.

(2) Uniform standards and protocols for incident site reports
for purposes of collecting data on unintentional injury incidents
involving children and youth between zero and 19 years of age,
inclusive, that result in death or hospitalization.

(A) The uniform standards and protocols shall identify
appropriate reporting entities.

(B) The uniform standards and protocols shall, at a minimum,
include the following:

(i) 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, if that reporting is practical and does not distract
the existing emergency medical services or health care data
collection system from its current function and mission, and to the
local health department.

(ii) Recommendations on how best to capture local unintentional
injury incident site report data and information, so the data is
accessible by, and can be incorporated into, existing state data
systems associated with trauma and unintentional injury prevention
programs, and recommendations regarding the timeline for
consolidation of the data into existing related data systems.

(b) The statewide plan and uniform 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 involving children and youth between zero
and 19, years of age, inclusive.

(c) This section shall not be construed to mandate reporting
entities identified in the uniform standards and protocols to collect
or report data beyond that required by existing law.

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

(1) “Department” means the State Department of Public Health.

(2) “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, children left in cars,
vehicle backovers, vehicle frontovers, sports-related activities,
and poisoning.

(3) “Reporting entity” means the reporting entity identified in
the standards and protocols developed by the department.

end insert

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SEC. 3.  

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.

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