1. Home
  2. Regulations
  3. 2022 Legislative Updates

2022 Legislative Updates

During the second year of the 2021-2022 Legislative Session, many bills of general interest to the Board of Registered Nursing, or those having potential impact on the administration of the Board, were followed. Although these bills address a variety of subjects, each affects registered nursing in some way. Of specific interest was the Board’s Sunset Bill, AB 2684 (Berman, Chapter 413, Statutes of 2022) which extended the Board’s sunset date to January 1, 2027.

The following is a list of bills that the Board followed in 2022 that were signed into law by Governor Newsom. Because some bills contain specific provisions, please refer to the bills themselves for complete details. The bills can also be accessed through the California Legislative Information website.

Assembly Bills

  • AB 657 (Cooper), Healing arts: expedited licensure process: applicants providing abortion services
    This bill requires the Medical Board of California, the Osteopathic Medical Board of California, the Board of Registered Nursing, and the Physician Assistant Board to expedite the licensure process of an applicant who can demonstrate that they intend to provide abortions within their scope of practice.
  • AB 852 (Wood), Health Care Practitioners: Electronic Prescriptions
    This bill prohibits a pharmacy, pharmacist, or other practitioner from refusing to dispense or furnish an e-prescription solely because the prescription was not submitted via, or is not compatible with, their proprietary software unless the software that fails to meet industry standards, federal and state laws or privacy requirements.
  • AB 1120 (Irwin), Clinical Laboratories: Blood Withdrawal
    This authorizes a certified phlebotomy technician to collect blood through a peripheral venous catheter under specified conditions, including that the blood collection procedure is performed under the general supervision of a physician and surgeon and the blood collection procedure is performed using a device or devices approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration.
  • AB 1604 (Holden), The Upward Mobility Act of 2022: Boards and Commissions: Civil Service: Examinations: Classifications
    This bill establishes the Upward Mobility Act of 2022, to modify state civil service examination and appointment practices for the purpose of increasing diversity of applicant pools on employment lists, determining areas of compliance for nonmerit-related audits; and promoting successful achievement of upward mobility goals for underrepresented state employees, as specified.
  • AB 1810 (Levine), Pupil Health: Seizure Disorders
    This bill authorizes a trained employee volunteer to administer emergency anti-seizure medication to a pupil upon the request of the parent, requires the development of state standards for the training, and requires the parent to provide specified information to the local educational agencies, including a seizure action plan.
  • AB 1914 (Davies), Resource Family Approval: Training
    This bill exempts resource family parents who meet certain requirements, such as having active and unrestricted licensure as a health care professional from resource family approval first aid training requirements. This bill also exempts resource family parents who have a certificate of completion for Basic Life Support for health care professionals, or Pediatric Advanced Life Support, or a higher standard of training that certifies CPR, from RFA CPR training requirements.
  • AB 2107 (Flora), Clinical laboratory testing
    This bill authorizes a person licensed as a clinical genetic molecular biologist scientist to use molecular biology techniques to perform a clinical laboratory test or examination for the detection of any disease affecting humans.
  • AB 2188 (Quirk), Discrimination in Employment: Use of Cannabis
    This bill makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against a person in hiring, termination, or any term or condition of employment, or otherwise penalize a person, if the discrimination is based upon the person’s use of cannabis off the job and away from the workplace or, with prescribed exceptions, upon an employer-required drug screening test that has found the person to have non-psychoactive cannabis metabolites in their urine, hair, or bodily fluids.
  • AB 2626 (Calderon), Medical Board of California: Licensee Discipline: Abortion
    This bill prohibits the Medical Board of California, the Osteopathic Medical Board, the Board of Registered Nursing, and the Physician Assistant Board from suspending or revoking the certificate, or denying an application for licensure, of a physician and surgeon, nurse practitioner, certified nurse-midwife, or physician assistant solely for performing an abortion in accordance with existing California law. This bill would also prohibit these boards from imposing such discipline on the licensees if they are disciplined or convicted in another state in which they are licensed or certified solely for performing abortions in that state.
  • AB 2684 (Committee on Business and Professions), Nursing
    This bill extends the sunset date for Board of Registered Nursing and makes changes to the Nursing Practice Act recommended during the joint sunset review of the Board.

Senate Bills

  • SB 731 (Durazo), Criminal Records: Relief
    This bill expands automatic arrest record and conviction relief to additional felony offenses. The bill also expands discretionary expungement relief to include felonies where the defendant was sentenced to state prison, rather than just realigned felonies.
  • SB 1237 (Newman), Licenses: Military Service
    This bill defines the phrase "called to active duty" to include active duty in the United States Armed Forces and on duty in the California National Guard, for purpose of professional license requirement waivers.
  • SB 1334 (Bradford), Meal and Rest Periods: Hospital Employees
    This bill extends existing meal and rest period rights and remedies available to private sector employees to those who provide direct patient care or support direct patient care in general acute care hospitals, clinics or public health settings who are directly employed by specified public sector employers.
  • SB 1375 (Atkins), Nursing: Nurse Practitioners
    This bill expands the training options for nurse practitioners and certified nurse-midwives seeking to perform abortions by aspiration techniques.
  • SB 1475 (Glazer), Blood Banks: Collection
    This bill authorizes blood collection at a blood bank when a physician or surgeon is not physically present if the medical director and their medical advisory committee approve and if the employee placed in charge, is a registered nurse. The bill would authorize the registered nurse placed in charge to be physically present or available via telehealth, so long as the method of telehealth used is synchronous. The bill would also require a blood bank to report annually to the department on any adverse donor events requiring emergency medical intervention, including whether a registered nurse was physically present on the premises.