Concerning ambulatory surgical facilities.

Prohibits the secretary of the department of health from increasing a fee for an ambulatory surgical facility that exceeds: (1) Three percent of the current fee; or

(2) The rate of inflation as determined by the consumer price index for the Seattle, Washington area as compiled by the bureau of labor and statistics of the United States department of labor for that year, whichever is lower.

Requires an ambulatory surgical facility to: (1) Be surveyed no more than once every eighteen months; and

(2) Once certified by the centers for medicare and medicaid services or accredited by an accrediting organization that has been determined by the secretary of the department of health to have substantially equivalent survey standards to those of the department of health, be surveyed no more than once every thirty-six months if a certification or accreditation survey occurs within eighteen months of a department survey.

Addresses payors that contract with ambulatory surgical facilities that require successful completion of a survey as part of the contract.

Concerning volunteer emergency workers volunteering with a nonprofit ambulance service provider.

Requiring certain health care professionals to provide information on primary place of practice at the time of license renewal.

Concerning the 24/7 sobriety program.

Regulating nursing home facilities.

Providing prenatal vitamin coverage.

Regulating the core legislative powers of elected commissioners of a public hospital district.

Providing for hospital discharge planning with lay caregivers.

Addresses lay caregivers providing aftercare assistance to a patient, in the patient's residence, after the patient's discharge from a hospital.

Creating the parent to parent program for individuals with developmental disabilities.

Declares it is the legislature's goal to continue, support, and enhance the existing parent to parent programs for individuals with either developmental disabilities, special health care needs, or both, and expand these programs statewide by 2021.

Modifying the nursing facility case mix classification methodology.

Concerning the development of higher education reverse transfer agreement plans.

Concerning the practice of certain East Asian medicine therapies.

Revises the definition of "East Asian medicine," for purposes of chapter 18.06 RCW (East Asian medicine practitioners), to expand the definition of "point injection therapy" to include injection of saline, sterile water, herbs, minerals, vitamins in liquid form, and homeopathic and nutritional substances, consistent with the practice of East Asian medicine.

States that point injection therapy does not include injection of controlled substances contained in schedules I through V of the uniform controlled substances act or steroids.

Revises the definition of "practitioner," for purposes of chapter 69.41 RCW (legend drugs--prescription drugs), to include East Asian medicine practitioners to the extent authorized under chapter 18.06 RCW.

Requires the department of health, in consultation with the East Asian medicine advisory committee, to establish by rule the definition of "point injection therapy" and adopt rules regarding substances administered as part of point injection therapy consistent with the practice of East Asian medicine.

Creating administrative efficiencies for institutions of higher education.

Authorizes an institution of higher education to: (1) Working with the arts commission, expend up to ten percent of the projected art allocation for a project during the design phase in order to select an artist and design art to be integrated in the building design; and

Allowing authorized health care providers to prescribe epinephrine autoinjectors.

Allows an authorized health care provider to prescribe epinephrine autoinjectors in the name of an authorized entity for use in accordance with this act.

Allows pharmacists, advanced registered nurse practitioners, and physicians to dispense epinephrine autoinjectors pursuant to a prescription issued in the name of an authorized entity.

Restricting the use of certain flame retardant chemicals in children's products and residential upholstered furniture.

Prohibits a manufacturer, wholesaler, or retailer from manufacturing, selling, or distributing for sale or use in this state children's products or residential upholstered furniture containing any of the following flame retardants in amounts greater than one thousand parts per million in any product component: (1) TDCPP;

(2) TCEP;

(3) Decabromodiphenyl ether;

(4) HBCD; or

Creating a work group to develop a plan for removing obstacles for higher education students with disabilities.

Requires the council of presidents to convene a work group to develop a plan for removing obstacles for students with disabilities.

Creating a business and occupation tax credit for capital costs associated with providing broadband service using qualified broadband equipment.

Concerning fire suppression volunteers.

Requires the department of natural resources, in order to maximize the effective use of qualified wildland fire suppression volunteers, to: (1) Compile and maintain a master list of volunteers who have valid incident qualifications for the kind of volunteer work to be performed;

(2) Create and make available a process by which potential volunteers may register with the department;

(3) Make the lists of volunteers available to county legislative authorities, emergency management departments, and local fire districts and provide training to those entities on the process for ordering volunteers through established coordinated resource ordering systems of local or state firefighting organizations;

(4) Cooperate with federal wildland firefighting agencies to maximize, based on predicted need, the efficient use of local resources in close proximity to wildland fire incidents;

(5) Provide all necessary safety and fire suppression equipment at no cost to each volunteer when the volunteer is dispatched to fire suppression duty; and

Concerning forest fire prevention and suppression.

Requires the department of natural resources to: (1) Impose an annual per parcel assessment of four dollars and ninety-five cents for every taxable parcel of land within the state that is not subject to the forest fire protection assessment;

(2) Transfer ten percent of the revenue collected from the parcel assessments specified above into the military department active state service account; and

(3) Create a prescribed burn manager certification program for those who practice prescribed burning in the state.

Requires Central Washington University to develop: (1) A bachelor of science degree program for wildfire behavior forecasting; and

(2) A specialized wildfire management certification course to train wildfire professionals.

Concerning the smoke management plan.

Requires the department of natural resources to: (1) In consultation with the department of ecology, other relevant state and federal agencies, participating tribes, and public and private landowners engaged in silvicultural forest burning, update the smoke management plan to increase transparency and predictability for prescribed burns; and

Concerning forest health through prudent wildfire prevention.

Requires the department of natural resources to: (1) In order to ensure the most efficient and effective mobilization of the state's fire prevention resources, identify: (a) Communities most vulnerable during wildfire season; (b) lands protected by the department that are geographically positioned to potentially threaten the vulnerable communities in case of wildfire; and (c) lands located outside of the department's fire protection responsibilities that are geographically positioned to potentially threaten the vulnerable communities in case of wildfire;

(2) Develop a twenty-year strategic plan to treat the 2.7 million acres of forestland identified by the department as being in poor forest health condition;

(3) Create a prescribed burn manager certification program for those who practice prescribed burning in the state; and

(4) Encourage mechanical thinning and prescribed burning when appropriate for forest health improvement and fire prevention.

Requiring that a certain percentage of state need grant recipients be pursuing degrees in STEM subjects.

Creates a work group to study the relationship between state need grants and the pursuit of degrees in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Expires August 1, 2017.

-- 2016 REGULAR SESSION --
Feb 2	Public hearing in the Senate Committee on Higher Education at 1:30 PM.
Feb 4	Executive action taken in the Senate Committee on Higher Education at 1:30 PM.
Feb 5	HIE - Majority; 1st substitute bill be substituted, do pass.
	Minority; without recommendation.
	Passed to Rules Committee for second reading.