BILL ANALYSIS
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|Hearing Date:April 20, 2009 |Bill No:SB |
| |43 |
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SENATE COMMITTEE ON BUSINESS, PROFESSIONS AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT
Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod, Chair
Bill No: SB 43 Author:Alquist
As Introduced: January 6, 2009 Fiscal: Yes
SUBJECT: Health professions.
SUMMARY: Authorizes the healing arts boards within the
Department of Consumer Affairs to collect information regarding
the cultural and linguistic competency of persons subject to
regulation by those boards and requires the information to be
used to meet the cultural and linguistic concerns of the state's
diverse patient population. Also requires the Employment
Development Department to share that information with the Office
of Statewide Health Planning and Development to increase the
amount of data available for workforce policy and development
efforts.
Existing law:
1)Provides for the licensure and regulation of various healing
arts by respective healing arts boards within the Department
of Consumer Affairs (DCA).
2)Establishes the Task Force on Culturally and Linguistically
Competent Physicians and Dentists and assigns the task force
various duties, including, among other things, identifying the
key cultural elements necessary to meet cultural competency.
3)Authorizes physicians and surgeons, dentists and dental
auxiliaries to report information regarding their cultural
background and foreign language proficiency to their
respective licensing boards and requires those boards to
collect that information, as specified.
4)Requires the Office of Statewide Health Planning and
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Development (OSHPD) to establish a health care workforce
clearinghouse to serve as the central source of health care
workforce and educational data in the state.
5)Requires the Director of the Employment Development Department
(EDD) to permit the use of information in his or her
possession for specified purposes.
This bill:
1)Allows a healing arts board, in a manner deemed appropriate by
the board, to collect information regarding the cultural and
linguistic competency of persons licensed, certified,
registered or otherwise subject to regulation by that board.
a) Specifies the information collected be used for the
purpose of meeting the cultural and linguistic concerns of
the state's diverse patient population.
b) Requires personally identifiable information collected
pursuant to this bill to be held in confidentiality and not
be subject to public inspection.
c) Stipulates that the authority provided in this bill
shall be in addition to, and not a limitation on, the
authority provided under other provisions of the Health and
Safety Code.
2)Defines "Board" as any healing arts board, division, or
examining committee that licenses, certifies or regulates
health professionals pursuant to this division.
3)Enables OSHPD to obtain labor market, workforce and earnings
data for the purpose of collecting health care workforce data
for the health care workforce clearinghouse established
pursuant to the Health and Safety Code.
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown. This bill has been keyed "fiscal" by
Legislative Counsel.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose. The Healthcare Workforce Clearinghouse, created under
SB 139 (Scott Chapter 522, Statutes of 2007) is intended to be
a centralized resource for California's health care workforce
and education data. The Clearinghouse is required to create
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a database to monitor the state's health care workforce and
assess the state's health care workforce supply and demand in
order to shape policy. The Author suggests that available
information is not used to its full capacity because EDD is
not authorized to share labor data and licensing boards are
not authorized to collect information about the cultural and
linguistic competency of health care professionals. Thus, the
Clearinghouse is not able to collect complete data. This bill
is meant to ensure that OSHPD can fully implement the
Clearinghouse with the most essential and relevant demographic
data available.
2.Background. There have been ongoing efforts among advocates
and policymakers to increase the number of providers who are
able to meet California's healthcare needs. Striking
shortages have been noted in the primary care, public health
and nursing fields. This has had adverse effects on access to
care in both rural and urban areas of the state. Another
shortage area is related to the racial and ethnic diversity of
the state's workforce. For example, by the year 2020, it is
estimated that California's population will grow to nearly 49
million; more than half of which will be non-white. While
African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans as a group
constitute nearly 25 percent of the U.S. population, these
three groups account for less than 9 percent of nurses, 6
percent of physicians and 5 percent of dentists. A number of
studies have shown a strong correlation between greater
diversity among health professionals and enhanced access to
care for racial and ethnic minority patients, expanded patient
choice and satisfaction, better patient-provider communication
and better educational experiences for all students in the
medical school setting.
3.Related Legislation this Session. SB 549 (Correa) authorizes
the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology to collect gender,
language and ethnicity data from new licensure applicants and
renewal licensees and requires that the information be
available to the public upon request.
SB 620 (Wiggins) requires a licensed osteopathic physician and
surgeon (D.O.) to report to the Osteopathic Medical Board of
California (OMBC) at the time of license renewal, any
specialty board certification and their practice status, as
defined. Allows a D.O. to report, and the OMBC to collect,
information regarding his or her cultural background, and
foreign language proficiency. Information collected may be
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placed on the OMBC's Internet website.
4.Prior Related Legislation. AB 269 (Eng, Chapter 262, Statues
of 2007) created new reporting requirements for dentists and
dental auxiliaries upon their application for initial
licensure and renewal and requires the Dental Board of
California (DBC) to collect, aggregate and post the
information collected pursuant to the bill on its website.
AB 2283 (Oropeza, Chapter 612, Statutes of 2006) requires the
Medical Board of California (MBC) to annually aggregate
existing data reported by physicians on their cultural
background and foreign language proficiency, by the zip code
of the primary practice location and on a statewide basis, and
report the information on MBC's website.
5.Suggested Amendments. Committee staff recommends the
following amendments to ensure licensee confidentiality:
Amendment 1
Subdivision (b) of Section 851.5 specifies the exact use of
the cultural and linguistic information collected solely.
Committee staff recommends the following addition:
The information collected pursuant to this section shall
be used for the purpose of meeting the cultural and
linguistic concerns of the state's diverse patient
population. Any other use of the information collected
pursuant to this section is expressly prohibited.
Amendment 2
Section 1095 (z) (aa) enables the Office of Statewide
Health Planning and Development to obtain health care
workforce data for the health care workforce clearinghouse.
Committee staff recommends the following addition:
Personally identifiable information collected pursuant to
this subdivision shall be confidential and not subject to
public inspection .
Amendment 3
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Committee staff recommends the following technical change
to Subdivision (d) of Section 851.5:
The authority provided in this section shall be in
addition to, and not a limitation on, the authority
provided under subdivision (c) of Section 2425.3 and
subdivision (d) of Section 1715.5 .
Amendment 4
Section 128051 of the Health and Safety Code originally
created the Health Care Workforce Clearinghouse and
stipulated the collection of workforce information by the
Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development in
conjunction with the Employment Development Department's
Labor Market Information Division, state licensing boards,
and state higher education entities. Committee staff
recommends the addition of Subdivision (b) to Section
128051 to read:
(b) Personally identifiable information collected
pursuant to this section shall be confidential and not
subject to public inspection .
6.Arguments in Support. The California Dental Association (CDA)
expects that this bill will produce information that could be
used by the dental industry as well as other healthcare
professionals to develop policies on recruitment, retention,
training and educational programs. The CDA admits working
diligently over the years to address access to care, by
providing, among other things, loan repayment for recent
graduates of a deental school who commit to work in
underserved areas, pipeline projects and dental day camps
aimed at encouraging students particularly from low- income
families to consider careers in dentistry. However, while CDA
has seen success in these efforts, its representatives believe
that the health care industry as a whole must participate to
fully address the needs of these communities and believes that
this bill will encourage expansion of efforts within other
health care professions.
7.Support if Amended. The Latino Coalition for Healthy
California (LCHC) has a support if amended position on this
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measure. LCHC suggests that the language of the bill be
amended to mandate the collection of linguistic and cultural
competency information from licensees by the healing arts
boards.
NOTE : Double-referral to Judiciary Committee second.
SUPPORT AND OPPOSITION:
Support:
California Dental Association
California Chiropractic Association
California Primary Care Association
Sailors Union of the Pacific
Support If Amended:
Latino Coalition for Healthy California
Opposition: None received as of April 14, 2009.
Consultant: Yuliya Zeynalova