BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 177
Page 1
SENATE THIRD READING
SB 177 (Strickland)
As Amended August 18, 2011
Majority vote
SENATE VOTE :33-0
HEALTH 19-0 APPROPRIATIONS 16-0
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|Ayes:|Monning, Logue, Ammiano, |Ayes:|Fuentes, Harkey, |
| |Atkins, Bonilla, Eng, | |Blumenfield, Bradford, |
| |Garrick, Gordon, Hayashi, | |Charles Calderon, Campos, |
| |Roger Hern�ndez, | |Donnelly, Gatto, Hall, |
| |Bonnie Lowenthal, | |Hill, Lara, Mitchell, |
| |Mansoor, Mitchell, | |Nielsen, Norby, Solorio, |
| |Nestande, Pan, | |Wagner |
| |V. Manuel P�rez, Silva, | | |
| |Smyth, Williams | | |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Expands the provision of dietary services provided in
general acute care hospitals. Increases the bed limit for
congregate living health facilities (CLHFs) that serve
terminally ill patients in the County of Santa Barbara.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Permits a CLHF to have up to 25 beds if the CLHF is located in
the County of Santa Barbara.
2)Finds and declares that a special law is necessary and that a
general law cannot be made applicable within the meaning of
existing law because of the unique business climate
surrounding CLHFs in the County of Santa Barbara.
3)Allows, for the purposes of hospital licensing requirements,
dietary services to be provided either at the hospital, or in
another hospital immediately adjacent to the hospital, as long
as dedicated facilities are in place to accommodate the
delivery of these services, and the Department of Public
Health determines that all applicable statutory and regulatory
standards pertaining to dietary services have been met.
4)Double joints this bill to SB 844 (Price), to avoid
chaptering-out problems, as the two bills amend the same
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Health and Safety Code section.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, this bill will increase CLHF capacity resulting in
potentially minor to significant costs to Medi-Cal, but could
also result in potentially minor to significant cost avoidance
depending on the costs associated with whether the individuals
receiving hospice Medi-Cal benefits select CLHF services versus
receiving similar services in a skilled nursing facility.
COMMENTS : According to the author, Hollywood Presbyterian
Medical Center (HPMC) must temporarily shut down their dietary
services department in order to accommodate seismic upgrades to
the emergency room and other portions of the hospital. HPMC is
seeking the ability to use the dietary services of Children's
Hospital Los Angeles that is immediately adjacent to HPMC during
construction and until construction is completed. The author
explains that HPMC is landlocked by a street on one side and
Children's Hospital Los Angeles on the other side prohibiting
planned construction activities except inside the hospital
itself. Areas of HPMC scheduled for retrofitting, according to
the author, are the emergency room, the dietary services
department, and a number of floors that provide hospital beds.
The only area that is large enough to accommodate the staging of
construction is the emergency room or the dietary services
department, however, Children's Hospital Los Angeles has the
capacity to absorb the dietary services functions on behalf of
HPMC. The author describes that HPMC and Children's Hospital
Los Angeles are connected by a dedicated walkway that joins the
two hospitals. The author argues that the only other option
available to HPMC is to shut down the emergency room, which
would result in laying-off hospital workers at a time when
unemployment in the county exceeds 13%. Additionally, the
author maintains, without the exemption granted by this bill,
there would be a re-routing of approximately 35,000 emergency
room visits annually, negatively impacting other emergency rooms
in the greater Los Angeles area.
According to the author, Santa Barbara County has only one
licensed hospice facility, Serenity House, a six-bed facility
operated by Visiting Nurses and Hospice Care of Santa Barbara
(VNHC), the sponsor of this bill. The author maintains that
Serenity House has struggled to meet the patient demand in the
Santa Barbara community for many years citing that between 2008
and 2009, Serenity Houses experienced a 71% increase in the
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number of patients served and also a growing waiting list due to
a lack of available beds for end-of-life patients. The author
argues that in recognition of this critical need, local
community members generously contributed to the campaign to
build a new 18-bed hospice inpatient facility. The author
states that without enactment of this bill the Serenity House,
which recently opened their new 18-bed facility as a 12-bed
facility in accordance with existing law, will have to operate
interminably as a 12-bed facility. According to the author,
this bill will allow the six additional beds to become operative
in January 2012 and thus provide more critical hospice-bed
capacity in the Santa Barbara region of the central coast.
Analysis Prepared by : Tanya Robinson-Taylor / HEALTH / (916)
319-2097
FN: 0001847