AS Title 18, Chapter 5: Administration of Public Health and Related Laws

Chapter 05. Administration of Public Health and Related Laws. Sec. 18.05.010. Administration of laws by department. (a) The department shall administer the statutes and regulations relating to the promotion and protection of the public health as provided by law. (b) In performing its duties under this chapter, AS 18.09 , and AS 18.15.355 — 18.15.395, the department may (1) flexibly use the broad range of powers set out in this title assigned to the department to protect and promote the public health; (2) provide public health information programs or messages to the public that promote healthy behaviors or lifestyles or educate individuals about health issues; (3) promote efforts among public and private sector partners to develop and finance programs or initiatives that identify and ameliorate health problems; (4) establish, finance, provide, or endorse performance management standards for the public health system; (5) develop, adopt, and implement (A) a statewide health plan under AS 18.09 based on recommendations of the Alaska Health Care Commission established in AS 18.09.010 ; and (B) public health plans and formal policies through regulations adopted under AS 44.62 or collaborative recommendations that guide or support individual and community public health efforts; (6) establish formal or informal relationships with public or private sector partners within the public health system; (7) identify, assess, prevent, and ameliorate conditions of public health importance through surveillance; epidemiological tracking, program evaluation, and monitoring; testing and screening programs; treatment; administrative inspections; or other techniques; (8) promote the availability and accessibility of quality health care services through health care facilities or providers; (9) promote availability of and access to preventive and primary health care when not otherwise available through the private sector, including acute and episodic care, prenatal and postpartum care, child health, family planning, school health, chronic disease prevention, child and adult immunization, testing and screening services, dental health, nutrition, and health education and promotion services; (10) systematically and regularly review the public health system and recommend modifications in its structure or other features to improve public health outcomes; and (11) collaborate with public and private sector partners, including municipalities, Alaska Native organizations, health care providers, and health insurers, within the public health system to achieve the mission of public health. Sec. 18.05.020. Department to report activities. The department shall prepare an annual report of its activities and notify the legislature not later than 10 days after it convenes that the report is available. Sec. 18.05.030. Cooperation with federal government. The department shall (1) cooperate with the federal government in matters of mutual concern pertaining to public health, the control of communicable diseases, maternal and child health and crippled children, and other matters within the scope of this title; (2) make reports, in the form and containing the information the federal government requires; (3) cooperate with the federal government, its agencies or instrumentalities in establishing, extending, and strengthening services for the protection of the public health, and receive and expend funds and receive, utilize, and maintain equipment and facilities made available to the department by a department or agency of the federal government, the government of the state or its political subdivisions, and a person or nonofficial agency. Sec. 18.05.031. Program planning for developmental disability. [Repealed, § 5 ch 165 SLA 1978. For current law, see AS 47.80 .] Sec. 18.05.032. Information relating to pregnancy and pregnancy alternatives. (a) The department shall maintain on the Internet, in printable form, standard information that (1) contains geographically indexed material designed to inform a person of public and private agencies, services, clinics, and facilities that are available to assist a woman with the woman's reproductive choices; the department shall include information about at least the following types of agencies, services, clinics, and facilities: (A) agencies, services, clinics, and facilities designed to assist a woman through pregnancy, including adoption agencies, and counseling services; (B) agencies, services, clinics, and facilities that provide abortion options and counseling and post-abortion counseling and services; and (C) agencies, services, clinics, and facilities designed to assist with or provide contraceptive options and counseling for appropriate family planning; (2) includes a comprehensive regional directory of the agencies, services, clinics, and facilities that request to be identified by the department under (1) of this subsection, a description of the services they offer, and the manner in which the agencies, services, clinics, and facilities may be contacted, including telephone numbers; (3) provides information concerning the eligibility for medical assistance benefits for prenatal care, childbirth, neonatal care, abortion services, women's health care, and contraception; (4) states that informed and voluntary consent is required under AS 18.16.060 for an abortion; (5) provides information concerning the process by which a mother of a child may establish a child support order to assist in the support of a child; (6) describes the fetal development of a typical unborn child at two-week gestational increments from fertilization to full-term, including links to photographs of a typical unborn child at four-week gestational increments, and relevant information about the possibility of an unborn child's survival at the various gestational ages; the information must be objective, nonjudgmental information that is reviewed and approved for medical accuracy by recognized obstetrical and gynecological specialists designated by the State Medical Board and designed to convey only accurate scientific information about unborn children at various gestational ages; (7) contains objective, unbiased information that is reviewed and approved for medical accuracy by recognized obstetrical and gynecological specialists designated by the State Medical Board and that describes the methods of abortion procedures and treatments commonly employed and the medical risks and possible complications commonly associated with each procedure and treatment, as well as the possible physical and psychological effects that have been associated with having an abortion; (8) contains objective, unbiased information that is reviewed and approved for medical accuracy by recognized obstetrical and gynecological specialists designated by the State Medical Board and that describes the possible medical risks and complications commonly associated with pregnancy and childbirth, as well as the possible physical and psychological effects that have been associated with carrying a child to term; (9) contains objective, unbiased information that is reviewed and approved for medical accuracy by recognized obstetrical and gynecological specialists designated by the State Medical Board and that concerns the harmful effects on an unborn child when a woman consumes alcohol, tobacco, or illegal drugs during pregnancy; (10) contains objective, unbiased, and comprehensive information that is reviewed and approved for medical accuracy by recognized obstetrical and gynecological specialists designated by the State Medical Board and that describes the different types of available contraceptive choices, including abstinence and natural family planning, that describes the methods of contraception that are intended to prevent fertilization and the methods that are intended to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, and that describes the reliability, psychological effects, medical risks, and complications commonly associated with each method; (11) contains a disclaimer on the website home page concerning the graphic or sensitive nature of the information contained on the website; (12) contains a signature form by which a person may indicate the person has reviewed the information. (b) The department shall adopt regulations establishing procedures for establishing and maintaining the information under this section. (c) In this section, (1) “abortion” has the meaning given in AS 18.16.090 ; (2) “fertilization” means the fusion of a human spermatozoon with a human ovum; (3) “gestational age” means the age of the unborn child as calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of a pregnant woman; (4) “unborn child” means the offspring of a human being in utero at various stages of biological development. Sec. 18.05.035. Planned parenthood information. The department shall prepare information regarding planned parenthood. The department shall place the information in public hospitals, clinics, or other health facilities throughout the state, and upon request of its administrator, in a private hospital, clinic, or health facility, so that members of the public may obtain the information voluntarily, without request. The department shall also advertise the availability of the information and distribute it to any person upon written request. Sec. 18.05.037. Fetal health effects information. The department shall prepare or obtain distributable information on fetal alcohol effects and the fetal health effects of chemical abuse and battering during pregnancy. The department shall make this information available to public hospitals, clinics, and other health facilities in the state for distribution to their patients. Sec. 18.05.040. Regulations. (a) The commissioner shall adopt regulations consistent with existing law for (1) the time, manner, information to be reported, and persons responsible for reporting for each disease or other condition of public health importance on the list developed under AS 18.15.370 ; (2) cooperation with local boards of health and health officers; (3) protection and promotion of the public health and prevention of disability and mortality; (4) the transportation of dead bodies, except that the commissioner may not require that a dead body be embalmed unless the body is known to carry a communicable disease or embalmment is otherwise required for the protection of the public health or for compliance with federal law; (5) carrying out the purposes of this chapter; (6) the conduct of its business and for carrying out the provisions of laws of the United States and the state relating to public health; (7) establishing the divisions and local offices and advisory groups necessary or considered expedient to carry out or assist in carrying out a duty or power assigned to it; (8) the voluntary certification of laboratories to perform diagnostic, quality control, or enforcement analyses or examinations based on recognized or tentative standards of performance relating to analysis and examination of food, including seafood, milk, water, and specimens from human beings submitted by licensed physicians and nurses for analysis; (9) the regulation of quality and purity of commercially compressed oxygen sold for human respiration; (10) establishing confidentiality and security standards for information and records received under AS 18.15.355 — 18.15.395; (11) implementation of AS 13.55 (Voluntary Nonopioid Directive Act). (b) A regulation may not be adopted under (a) of this section that duplicates, conflicts with, or is inconsistent with AS 18.60.705 — 18.60.740. Sec. 18.05.042. Access to health care records. (a) The department may, during reasonable business hours, inspect health care records maintained by physicians and other health care professionals, hospitals, out-patient clinics, nursing homes, and other facilities or agencies providing health care services to patients that would identify patients or establish characteristics of an identified patient with cancer required to be reported under 42 U.S.C. 280e — 280e-4, or a birth defect or infectious disease required to be reported to protect the public health under this chapter and regulations adopted under this chapter. Disclosure of these health care records to the department does not constitute a breach of patient confidentiality. (b) The department may conduct research using health care data reported under (a) of this section. The department may provide data obtained under (a) of this section to other persons for clinical, epidemiological, or other public health research. (c) Data obtained or a record inspected under this section that identifies a particular individual (1) is confidential; (2) may not be further disclosed to other persons except by the department under (b) of this section; and (3) is not subject to inspection or copying under AS 40.25.110 — 40.25.125. Secs. 18.05.044 , 18.05.046. Registry of persons with impairments; Use of the registry of persons with impairments. [Repealed, § 12 ch 54 SLA 2005.] Sec. 18.05.050. Hospital advisory council. [Repealed, § 3 ch 89 SLA 1964.] Secs. 18.05.051 — 18.05.055. Comprehensive Health Advisory Council; powers and duties; definitions. [Repealed, § 2 ch 78 SLA 1973.] Secs. 18.05.056 — 18.05.060. Practice of lay midwifery. [Repealed, § 8 ch 130 SLA 1992. For current law, see AS 08.65 .] Sec. 18.05.061. Penalty for violation. A person who violates a provision of AS 18.05.040 or 18.05.042 or a regulation adopted under AS 18.05.040 or 18.05.042 is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, is punishable by a fine of not more than $500, or by imprisonment for not more than one year. Each day that a person continues a violation is a separate offense. Sec. 18.05.065. Dental radiological equipment. Sec. 18.05.070. Definitions. In this chapter, (1) “commissioner” means the commissioner of health; (2) “condition of public health importance” means a disease, syndrome, symptom, injury, or other threat to health that is identifiable on an individual or community level and can reasonably be expected to lead to adverse health effects in the community; (3) “department” means the Department of Health.