By June 30, 1996:

(a) The Department of Health Care Access and Information, hereinafter called the department, shall develop definitions of earthquake performance categories for earthquake ground motions for both new and existing hospitals that are:

(1) Reasonably capable of providing services to the public after a disaster, designed and constructed to resist, insofar as practical, the forces generated by earthquakes, gravity, and winds, and in full compliance with the regulations and standards developed by the department pursuant to the Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Facilities Seismic Safety Act.

(2) In substantial compliance with the pre-1973 California Building Standards Codes, but not in substantial compliance with the regulations and standards developed by the department pursuant to the Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Facilities Seismic Safety Act. These buildings may not be repairable or functional but will not significantly jeopardize life.

(3) Potentially at significant risk of collapse and that represent a danger to the public.

(b) The department may define other earthquake performance categories as it deems necessary to meet the intent of this article and the Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Facilities Seismic Safety Act.

(c) Earthquake performance categories shall also include subgradations for risk to life, structural soundness, building contents, and nonstructural systems that are critical to providing basic services to hospital inpatients and the public after a disaster.

(d) Earthquake performance categories shall, as far as practicable, use language consistent with definitions and concepts as developed in the model codes and other state and federal agencies. Where the department finds that deviations from other’s definitions and concepts are necessary and warranted to comply with the intent of the Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Facilities Seismic Safety Act, the act that added this article, or the specific nature or functions of hospitals, the department shall provide supporting documentation that justifies these differences.

(e) Insofar as practicable, the department shall define rapid seismic evaluation procedures that will allow owners to determine with reasonable certainty the existing applicable earthquake performance categories and the minimum acceptable earthquake performance categories for hospital buildings. These procedures shall allow for abbreviated analysis when known vulnerability is clear and when construction in accordance with post-1973 codes allows for an evaluation focusing on limited structural and nonstructural elements.

(f) The department, in consultation with the Hospital Building Safety Board, shall develop regulations to identify the most critical nonstructural systems and to prioritize the timeframes for upgrading those systems that represent the greatest risk of failure during an earthquake.

(g) The department shall develop regulations as they apply to the administration of seismic standards for retrofit designs, construction, and field reviews for the purposes of this article.

(h) The department shall develop regulations for the purpose of reviewing requests and granting delays to hospitals demonstrating a need for more time to comply with Section 130060.

(i) The department shall submit all information developed pursuant to subdivisions (a) to (f), inclusive, to the California Building Standards Commission by June 30, 1996.

(j) The department shall submit all information developed pursuant to subdivisions (g) and (h) to the California Building Standards Commission by December 31, 1996.

(k) “Hospital building,” as used in Article 8 and Article 9 of this chapter means a hospital building as defined in Section 129725 and that is also licensed pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 1250, but does not include these buildings if the beds licensed pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 1250, as of January 1, 1995, comprise 10 percent or less of the total licensed beds of the total physical plant, and does not include facilities owned or operated, or both, by the Department of Corrections.

(Amended by Stats. 2021, Ch. 143, Sec. 323. (AB 133) Effective July 27, 2021.)