SB1447 - Health omnibus.

Senate Bill No. 1447 CHAPTER 238 An act to amend Sections 1279.6, 113739.1, 113769, 114020, 114079, 114367.1, 114368.8, 114380, 131365, and 131370 of, and to add Sections 113769.1, 113814.1, and 113823.1 to, the Health and Safety Code, and to add Section 9103.5 to the Welfare and Institutions Code, relating to health. [ Approved by Governor September 14, 2026. Filed with Secretary of State September 14, 2026. ] LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST SB 1447, Committee on Health. Health omnibus. (1) Existing law, the California Retail Food Code, establishes uniform health and sanitation standards for retail food facilities, and defines multiple terms used in those provisions, including egg, food additive, beverage, and catering operation. Existing law requires that frozen potentially hazardous food be thawed in specified ways. A person who violates any provision of the California Retail Food Code is generally guilty of a misdemeanor. This bill would update the definition of catering operation to mean a permanent food facility approved for food preparation where food is served at a location other than its permitted location in specified circumstances. The bill would also add definitions for the terms egg product, intact meat, and mechanically tenderized. The bill would also require that reduced oxygen packaged fish bearing a label indicating it is to be kept frozen until time of use be completely removed from the packaging prior to thawing. By expanding the scope of an existing crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would make additional technical changes to these provisions. Existing law requires a person proposing to build or remodel a food facility to submit complete, easily readable plans drawn to scale, and specifications to the enforcement agency for review, and to receive plan approval before starting any new construction or remodeling of a facility for use as a retail food facility, including school food facilities. Existing law requires existing public and private school cafeterias, limited service charitable feeding operation facilities, and licensed health care facilities to be deemed in compliance with the California Retail Food Code pending replacement or renovation, except when the enforcement agency determines that the nonconforming structural conditions pose a public health hazard. This bill would, for purposes of the above-described provision, switch limited service charitable feeding operation facilities to existing nonprofit charitable feeding organization facilities whose food service is solely for providing charity. (2) Existing law authorizes the State Department of Public Health to develop and administer a syndromic surveillance program and, subject to an appropriation, to designate an existing system or to create a new system. Existing law requires the system, at a minimum, to provide local health departments with access to an electronic health system to rapidly collect, evaluate, share, and store syndromic surveillance data, as specified. Existing law authorizes the department to modify the list of data elements, standards, schedules, and instructions at any time, and requires the department to collaborate with local health departments to determine those modifications. This bill would also authorize the department to implement the above-described items at any time and would require the department to collaborate with local health departments to determine those implementations. Existing law requires certain entities to submit the required data electronically to the syndromic surveillance system designated by the department in accordance with the schedule, standards, and requirements established by the department. Existing law provides that the data elements, standards, schedule, and instructions for data collection include any element or requirement adopted for use by the Public Health Information Network Messaging Guide for Syndromic Surveillance released in April 2015, or any subsequent versions, under the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Existing law authorizes an entity to decline to report data if the local health department participates in a syndromic surveillance system or maintains its own system that has, or by no later than July 1, 2027, will have, the capacity to transmit data to the department in a specified manner. This bill would instead require that the data elements, standards, schedule, and instructions for data collection include any department-approved element or requirement. The bill would require reporting to the syndromic surveillance system no later than December 31, 2028, or within one year of official notification by the department, and would authorize declining to report if the local health department’s own system will have the capacity to transmit data to the department in a specified manner by no later than December 31, 2028, or within one year of official notification by the department. (3) Existing law, the Mello-Granlund Older Californians Act, establishes the California Department of Aging in the California Health and Human Services Agency and sets forth its mission to provide leadership to the area agencies on aging in developing systems of home- and community-based services that maintain individuals in their own homes or least restrictive homelike environments. Existing law establishes the State Department of Public Health Office of AIDS, which is responsible for coordinating state programs, services, and activities relating to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and AIDS-related conditions (ARC). This bill would require the California Department of Aging and State Department of Public Health Office of AIDS to meet annually to collaborate on issues of mutual interest, including supporting seniors with chronic care conditions and comorbidities and the impacts of HIV, AIDS, and sexually transmitted infections on the aging population in California. (4) 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 with regard to certain mandates no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. With regard to any other mandates, this bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs so mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above. Digest Key Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: YES Bill Text The people of the State of California do enact as follows: SECTION 1. Section 1279.6 of the Health and Safety Code is amended to read: 1279.6. (a) A health facility, as defined in subdivision (a), (b), (c), or (f) of Section 1250, shall develop, implement, and comply with a patient safety plan for the purpose of improving the health and safety of patients and reducing preventable patient safety events. The patient safety plan shall be developed by the facility in consultation with the facility’s various health care professionals. (b) The patient safety plan required pursuant to subdivision (a) shall, at a minimum, provide for the establishment of all of the following: (1) A patient safety committee or equivalent committee in composition and function. The committee shall be composed of the facility’s various health care professionals, including, but not limited to, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and administrators. The committee shall do all of the following: (A) Review and approve the patient safety plan. (B) Receive and review reports of patient safety events as defined in subdivision (e). (C) Monitor implementation of corrective actions for patient safety events. (D) Make recommendations to eliminate future patient safety events. (E) Review and revise the patient safety plan, at least once a year, but more often if necessary, to evaluate and update the plan and to incorporate advancements in patient safety practices. (2) A reporting system for patient safety events that allows anyone involved, including, but not limited to, health care practitioners, facility employees, patients, and visitors, to make a report of a patient safety event to the health facility, including anonymous reporting options. (3) A process for a team of facility staff to conduct analyses, including, but not limited to, root cause analyses of patient safety events. The team shall be composed of the facility’s various categories of health care professionals with the appropriate competencies to conduct the required analyses. The process shall also include analyses of patient safety events, including the following sociodemographic factors, to identify disparities in these events: (A) Age. (B) Race. (C) Ethnicity. (D) Gender identity. (E) Sexual orientation. (F) Preferred language spoken. (G) Disability status. (H) Payor. (I) Sex. (4) For the purposes of paragraph (3), it is the intent of the Legislature that a health facility use the same stratification categories as developed and defined by the Department of Health Care Access and Information for purposes of Section 127372, which is part of the Medical Equity Disclosure Act (Article 3 (commencing with Section 127370) of Chapter 2 of Part 2 of Division 107). With respect to the information set forth in subparagraphs (D) and (E) of paragraph (3), a health facility shall only be required to disclose information that is voluntarily provided by the patient or client. (5) A reporting process that supports and encourages a culture of safety and reporting patient safety events. (6) A process for providing ongoing patient safety training for facility personnel and health care practitioners. (7) A process for addressing racism and discrimination, and their impact on patient health and safety, that includes, but is not limited to: (A) Monitoring sociodemographic disparities in patient safety events and developing interventions to remedy known disparities. (B) Encouraging facility staff to report suspected instances of racism and discrimination. (c) Commencing January 1, 2026, and biennially thereafter, a health facility shall submit a patient safety plan to the department’s licensing and certification division. (1) The department may impose a fine not to exceed five thousand dollars ($5,000) on a health facility for failure to adopt, update, or submit a patient safety plan. (2) The department may grant a health facility an automatic 60-day extension for submitting a biennial patient safety plan. (d) The department shall make all patient safety plans submitted by health facilities available to the public on its internet website. (e) For the purposes of this section, patient safety events shall be defined by the patient safety plan and shall include, but not be limited to, all adverse events or potential adverse events as described in Section 1279.1 that are determined to be preventable, and health-care-associated infections (HAI), as defined in the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network, or its successor, unless the department accepts the recommendation of the Healthcare Associated Infection Advisory Committee, or its successor, that are determined to be preventable. SEC. 2. Section 113739.1 of the Health and Safety Code is amended to read: 113739.1. (a) “Catering operation” means a permanent food facility approved for food preparation where food is served, or limited food preparation is conducted, at a location other than its permitted location, in either of the following circumstances: (1) As part of a contracted offsite food service event. (2) When operating in conjunction with a host facility with direct food sales. (b) “Catering operation” shall not include either of the following: (1) Food ordered as takeout or delivery from a food facility, where the food is provided to the consumer for self-service. (2) A food facility that is participating as part of a community event. SEC. 3. Section 113769 of the Health and Safety Code is amended to read: 113769. (a) “Egg” means the shell egg of an avian species that includes chicken, duck, goose, guinea, quail, ratite, or turkey. (b) “Egg” does not include any of the following: (1) Balut. (2) An egg product. (3) The egg of a reptile species, such as an alligator. SEC. 4. Section 113769.1 is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read: 113769.1. (a) “Egg product” means all, or a portion of, the contents found inside eggs separated from the shell and pasteurized in a food facility, with or without added ingredients, intended for human consumption, such as dried, frozen, or liquid eggs. (b) “Egg product” does not include food that contains eggs only in a relatively small proportion such as cake mixes. SEC. 5. Section 113814.1 is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read: 113814.1. “Intact meat” means a cut of whole muscle meat that has not undergone comminution, mechanical tenderization, vacuum tumbling with solutions, reconstruction, cubing, or pounding. SEC. 6. Section 113823.1 is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read: 113823.1. “Mechanically tenderized” means manipulating meat by piercing with a set of needles, pins, blades, or any mechanical device, which breaks up muscle fiber and tough connective tissue to increase tenderness. This includes injection, scoring, and processes that may be referred to as blade tenderizing, jaccarding, pinning, or needling. SEC. 7. Section 114020 of the Health and Safety Code is amended to read: 114020. (a) Frozen potentially hazardous food shall only be thawed in one of the following ways: (1) Under refrigeration that maintains the food temperature at 41 degrees or below. (2) Completely submerged under potable running water for a period not to exceed two hours at a water temperature of 70 degrees or below, and with sufficient water velocity to agitate and flush off loose particles into the sink drain. (3) In a microwave oven if immediately followed by immediate preparation. (4) As part of a cooking process. (b) Reduced oxygen packaged fish that bears a label indicating that it is to be kept frozen until time of use shall be completely removed from the reduced oxygen environment and packaging prior to thawing. SEC. 8. Section 114079 of the Health and Safety Code is amended to read: 114079. (a) Except as specified in subdivisions (b) and (c), after being served or sold and in the possession of a consumer, food that is unused or returned by the consumer shall not be offered as food for human consumption. (b) A container of food that is not potentially hazardous may be transferred from one consumer to another if the food is dispensed so that it is protected from contamination and the container is closed between uses, such as a narrow-neck bottle containing ketchup, steak sauce, or wine, or if the food, su [Text truncated for display. Full text available on LegiScan.]