A critical deadline passed last week in the state Legislature and there’s good news: both of CHA’s sponsored bills — one that would expand and reinvest in the Distressed Hospital Loan Program and another that would cost out proposed laws — have passed out of their committees.
Many thanks to all the hospital leaders who have raised their voices and shared with their legislators the importance of these two bills to protect hospital care. You absolutely made a difference in advancing them out of their first committee.
Hospitals still have one more day to submit letters (see CHA’s alert ) in support of a $300 million state budget appropriation for the loan program, vital funding that has proven effective at pulling struggling hospitals back from the financial brink.
The companion bill, Assembly Bill (AB) 1923 (Soria, D-Merced) is now headed to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. On top of adding $300 million to the program, this bill would expedite loan forgiveness for current recipients and expand eligibility for the program beyond the current limitation of independent nonprofit and public hospitals. This would ensure that all hospitals experiencing financial distress can be considered for assistance — keeping distressed hospitals open is critical to all hospitals in the state.
The second bill, AB 2353 (Pacheco, D-Downey), is also headed to the Appropriations Committee. This bill would provide legislators with critical and timely information to evaluate the impact of proposed legislation on access to patient care. At a time when Medi-Cal cuts, inflation, and health coverage losses are making it harder for hospitals to care for patients, lawmakers must understand the impact of unfunded state mandates — to ensure that new laws protect Californians, their access to health care, and their pocketbooks.
There’s also some concerning news. Two high-profile artificial intelligence (AI) bills — both of which could severely curtail effective, beneficial, and proven clinical practices — are also moving forward.
AB 1979 (Bonta, D-Alameda) would prohibit clinical decisions based solely on clinical decision support system (CDSS) output and AB 2575 (Ortega, D-Hayward) would require written notification to workers that a CDSS is being used in the provision of patient care and would allow a health care worker to override the output of the CDSS. While these bills appear to simply provide clinicians with greater control over the AI tools they are using, the actual effects would be highly detrimental for patients.
For example, taken together, the bills would severely limit proven benefits for patients, curbing common practices like:
- Early Sepsis Detection: Predictive algorithms continuously monitor vital signs, lab values, and clinical notes to identify patients developing sepsis, hours before traditional clinical recognition.
- Stroke Identification and Triage: AI-powered imaging analysis identifies large vessel occlusions in CT angiography scans within minutes, automatically alerting stroke teams and enabling faster intervention.
- Medication Safety: CDSS screen medication orders for drug interactions, allergies, dosing errors, and contraindications. These systems prevent thousands of adverse drug events per year at each facility where they are used.
- Cancer Screening: AI-assisted imaging tools help radiologists identify suspicious findings in mammograms, chest CT scans, and pathology slides that might otherwise be missed.
- Readmission Risk Reduction: Predictive models identify patients at elevated risk of 30-day readmission, allowing care teams to coordinate transitional resources for those who need them most.
- Clinical Trials: AI tools help match patients to clinical trials, flag safety concerns, and monitor whether study protocols are being followed.
- Patient and Family Education: AI-generated drafts of discharge instructions, post-discharge care plans, and educational materials support health care workers so they can focus on direct patient care.
- Professional Communication and Handoffs: AI-generated clinical summaries facilitate shift handoffs between nurses, physicians, and other licensed professionals.
There are still about five months left in the session, so many more miles to go as we work to advance or halt these and other key bills. You can stay on top of key legislation through our state bill tracker and keep an eye on your inboxes for opportunities to get involved.
Our advocacy voice is strongest when it is elevated in chorus.
