Health facilities: cardiac surgery.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill summary does not specify the exact date when the new requirements will take effect after becoming law.

Cardiac Surgery Teams in Hospitals

This law changes the requirements for cardiac surgery teams at hospitals, requiring one surgeon and two additional individuals who are either physician’s assistants or registered nurses with specific qualifications.

What This Bill Does

• Changes the rules about who can be part of a cardiac surgery team in hospitals.
• Requires that each cardiac surgery team has one surgeon and two other people who are either physician's assistants or registered nurses with specific qualifications.
• Tells the State Department of Public Health to update its rules by January 1, 2027, to match these new requirements.

Who It Names or Affects

• General acute care hospitals in California
• Surgeons performing cardiac surgery
• Physician's assistants and registered nurses working on cardiac surgery teams

Terms To Know

extracorporeal bypass

A medical procedure that uses a machine to take over the heart's function during certain types of surgeries, like open-heart surgery.

state-mandated local program

When the state requires local agencies or hospitals to follow new rules and may need to pay for some costs related to these changes.

Limits and Unknowns

• Does not specify what happens if a hospital does not follow the new team requirements.
• The bill does not say how much it will cost hospitals to change their teams or train staff.

Official Summary Text

AB 1196, as amended, Gallagher.
Health facilities: cardiac surgery.
Existing law provides for the licensure and regulation of health facilities, including general acute care hospitals, by the State Department of Public Health. Existing law authorizes a general acute care hospital to be approved to offer special services, including, among others, cardiac surgery. Existing regulation requires, when a general acute care hospital is providing cardiovascular operative service, that a minimum of 3 surgeons constitute a surgical team if the procedure requires extracorporeal bypass.
Violation of these provisions is a crime.
This bill would instead require, when a general acute care hospital is performing cardiac surgery, that the surgical team for all cardiovascular operative procedures that require extracorporeal bypass consist of a minimum of one surgeon and 2 additional individuals, each of whom is either a physician’s assistant or a registered nurse that meets specified requirements. The
bill would require the department, on or before January 1, 2027, to amend its regulations to be consistent with these provisions. By changing the definition of a crime, 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 no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
This bill would require the department, on or before January 1, 2029, to update that regulation to reflect current professional standards of
care relating to extracorporeal bypass surgery.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF