California Law Will Lead to Statewide Smoke Evacuation

On October 7, 2023, California Gov. Newsome signed AB 1007 into law, making California the 15^th state to enact surgical smoke evacuation legislation. The new law requires the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) to develop, and the Occupational Safety & Health Standards Board (OSHSB) to adopt, an occupational safety and health standard to protect health care workers from surgical smoke in California operating rooms by requiring the use of surgical smoke plume scavenging systems in certain health care settings.

Gov. Newsom’s signing of A.B. 1007 comes after former Gov. Brown vetoed two similar bills in 2016 and 2017, and after the Cal/OSHA Standards Board granted the California Nurses Association’s regulatory petition in 2017 to pass a similar standard. Cal/OSHA began the process of drafting a regulation, gathering input from stakeholders and hosting a stakeholder meeting in late 2018. To date, that effort has not proceeded past the early drafting stage.

The enactment of AB 1007 will get this process moving. Under the law, Cal/OSHA must submit a proposed regulation to the OSHSB by December 1, 2026, and the OSHSB must consider the proposed regulation for adoption by June 1, 2027. Similar to 2017 and 2018, AORN will work with Cal/OSHA to provide expertise and feedback during its regulatory process to ensure an optimal regulatory approach to surgical smoke evacuation is ultimately adopted for California health care workers.

Are you interested in seeing surgical smoke evacuation become the law in your state? Check out AORN government affairs’ surgical smoke webpage for more information on how you can lay the groundwork for successful legislation in your state.