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7 LONG TITLE
8 General Description:
9 This bill establishes requirements for surgical facilities to develop policies to evacuate
10 surgical smoke.
11 Highlighted Provisions:
12 This bill:
13 ▸ defines terms;
14 ▸ directs facilities that conduct surgeries to develop policies to eliminate exposure to
15 surgical smoke; and
16 ▸ implements a deadline for the facilities to report their new policies to the
17 Department of Health.
18 Money Appropriated in this Bill:
19 None
20 Other Special Clauses:
21 None
22 Utah Code Sections Affected:
23 ENACTS:
24 26-21-33, Utah Code Annotated 1953
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26 Be it enacted by the Legislature of the state of Utah:
27 Section 1. Section 26-21-33 is enacted to read:
28 26-21-33. Regulation of surgical smoke.
29 (1) As used in this section:
30 (a) "Surgical smoke" means the gaseous by-product produced by energy-generating
31 devices including surgical plume, smoke plume, bio-aerosols, laser-generated airborne
32 contaminants, or lung-damaging dust.
33 (b) "Surgical smoke evacuation system" means equipment designed to capture and
34 neutralize surgical smoke at the point of origin and before the surgical smoke makes contact
35 with the eyes or the respiratory tract of the individuals in a room.
36 (2) Each specialty hospital that offers surgical procedures, each ambulatory surgical
37 facility, and each general acute hospital shall adopt and implement a policy that prevents
38 human exposure to smoke via the use of a surgical smoke evacuation system during any
39 planned surgical procedure that is likely to generate surgical smoke.
40 (3) On or before January 1, 2021, each entity described in Subsection (2) shall submit
41 to the department policies the entity has developed to comply with this section.