Legislation

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• AB 2565 (Eng) - Brain Death
• AB 2747 (Berg) – End-of-Life Care
• AB 3000 (Wolk) – Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST)
• SB 462 (Torlakson) – Hospice Facility Licensure
• SB 1196 (Runner) – Coroner Inquiries

This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that would require a hospital to follow specified notice procedures when an individual is declared dead in accordance with the definition in order to provide the individual's family with time to prepare for the removal of life support.

This bill provides that when an attending physician makes a diagnosis that a patient has a terminal illness or makes a prognosis that a patient has less than one year to live, the health care provider shall provide the patient with the opportunity to receive information and counseling regarding legal end-of-life options, as specified, and provide for the referral or transfer of a patient if the patient's physician does not wish to comply with the patient's choice of end-of-life options.

This bill would redefine a request to forgo resuscitative measures as a "request regarding resuscitative measures," which would be a written document, signed by an individual, or a legally recognized surrogate health care decisionmaker, and a physician, that addresses the individual's preferences regarding life-sustaining treatment. The bill would include within this definition a Physician Order for Life Sustaining Treatment form. The bill would require a health care provider treating an individual with a Physician Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment, as specified, to follow its orders. The bill would require the health care provider to honor the order even if a physician who executed the order does not have admitting privileges at a hospital or health care facility where the patient is being treated.

PENDING
LEGISLATION
2008

This bill amends existing law to require the coroner to inquire into, and determine the circumstances, manner, and cause of, among others, all deaths where the deceased has not been attended by either a physician or member of a hospice care interdisciplinary team in the 20 days before death.

Recent Legislation (2007)

• AB 1689 (Leiber) - Revised Uniform Anatomical Gifts Act

Recent Legislation (2006)

• AB 1363 (Jones) – Omnibus Conservatorship and Guardianship Reform Act of 2006
• AB 1745 (Chan) – Pediatric Palliative Care Benefit
• AB 2805 (Blakeslee) – Advance Directives: Electronic Signatures
• AB 2198 (Houston) – Controlled Substances

• AB 1676 (Richman) – Advance Directives and Terminal Illness Decisions
• SB 630 (Dutton) – Anatomical Gifts
• SB 666 (Aanestad) – Congregate Living Health Facilities
• SB 689 (Speier) – Vehicles: Organ and Tissue Donors: Registry
• SB 734 (Torlakson) – Controlled Substances
• SB 962 (Chesbro) – Adult Residential Facility: Pilot Project

• AB 30 (Richman) – Controlled Substances: Schedule II.
• AB 1299 (Daucher) – Hospice Licensure.
• AB 2352 (Jackson) – Residential care facilities for persons with chronic life-threatening illness.
• AB 2445 (Canciamilla) – Advance health care directives: registry.
• SB 1782 (Aanestad) – Medical crimes: investigation and prosecution.

• AB 1166 (Berg) – Residential Care Facilities and Terminally-ill Residents.
• AB 1196 (Montanez) – Nurse Practitioners & Schedule II Prescriptions.
• SB 151 (Burton) – Triplicate Prescription Requirement.

• AB 1946 (Corbett) – Written materials for patients.
• AB 1961 (Canciamilla) – Residential care facilities for the elderly; terminally ill persons.
• AB 2328 (Wayne; principal co-author Aroner) – Medical experiments.
• AB 2655 (Matthews) – Extension of Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES).
• AB 3049 (Committee on Health) – Public health; controlled substances.

• AB 25 (Migden) – Domestic Partnerships
• AB 487 (Aroner) – Medical Professionals: Conduct
• AB 1278 (Wayne) – Health Care Decisions
• SB 587 (Soto) – Critically or Terminally Ill Patients: Transfers
• SB 751 (Speier) – Hospitals: Surrogate Decisionmakers

• AB 791 (Thomson) – Pain Management
• AB 891 (Alquist) – Advance Directives
• AB 892 (Alquist) – Hospice Services
• AB 2018 (Thomson) – Controlled Substances: Schedule II: triplicate prescription
• SJR 30 (Speier) – Federal Pain Relief Promotion Act

Improving Care at Life's End: Report of the California Mediated Public Policy Dialogue on Physician-Assisted Suicide and End-of-Life Issues is now available as a PDF file.

The dialogue was convened at the request of the California State Assembly's Select Committee on Palliative Care. Participants included stakeholders and interested individuals representing a wide array of organizations, constituencies and points of view who met to discuss end-of-life issues.

The Select Committee asked participants to discuss two issues: 1. How to improve the dying process, with a focus on public policy recommendations on end-of-life care; and 2. Physician-assisted suicide and the values and policy perspectives that underlie attitudes toward physician-assisted suicide/physician aid in dying. 

This web page was last updated on 2/21/08.