BILL NUMBER: AB 1589	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Simitian

                        FEBRUARY 23, 2001

   An act to add Section 2028 to the Business and Professions Code,
relating to the healing arts.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 1589, as introduced, Simitian.  Healing arts: electronic
transmission prescriptions.
   Existing law, the Medical Practice Act, creates the Medical Board
of California and requires it to perform various duties relating to
the practices of physicians and surgeons and other healing arts
practitioners.
   This bill would require the board to study the electronic
transmission of prescriptions by physicians and surgeons and report
its results to the Legislature before May 1, 2002.  The bill would
specify that the board's report include recommendations to encourage
physicians and surgeons to use this method to transmit prescriptions
and identify systems to protect patients, including the issuance of a
digital certification, as defined.
   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.  (a) The Legislature finds, based upon a report entitled
"To Err is Human, Building a Safer Health System," a report issued
in 1999 by the Institute of Medicine, that in 1993, approximately
7,000 deaths occurred in the United States as a result of medication
errors.
   (b) The Legislature further finds, based on information from the
Institute for Safe Medicine Practices, the following:
   (1) Of the three billion prescriptions issued each year in the
United States, nearly all of them are handwritten by the physician
and surgeon issuing the prescription.
   (2) Illegible prescriptions result in more than 150 million
inquiries each year by pharmacists for clarification from the
physician and surgeon who issued the prescription.
   (3) While the technology exists for the electronic transmission of
prescriptions, less than 5 percent of physicians and surgeons use
this technology to prescribe medication.
  SEC. 2.  Section 2028 is added to the Business and Professions
Code, to read:
   2028.  The Medical Board of California shall conduct a study and
report its results to the Legislature before May 1, 2002, on the
electronic transmission of prescriptions by physicians and surgeons.
This report shall include recommendations for methods to encourage
physicians and surgeons to issue prescriptions by electronic
transmission and identification of systems to protect patients for
whom prescriptions are issued using that process, including, but not
limited to, the issuance of digital certification to physicians and
surgeons to use when transmitting prescriptions electronically.
"Digital certification" is an electronic signature verifying the
identity of the physician and surgeon who is transmitting the
prescription electronically.