Newsom signs California law requiring clinicians' own judgment when AI informs care

California Gov. Gavin Newsom approved AB 1979 on Sept. 30, per the Legislature’s bill record; the law requires health facilities, clinics and physician offices to take reasonable steps to ensure licensed professionals retain independent judgment when clinical decision support systems inform patient care, bars deploying AI tools to independently perform clinical functions state law reserves for licensed professionals, and extends California’s medical confidentiality law to records accessed through direct-to-consumer health chatbots, HCI Innovation Group reported. Newsom also signed SB 503, which requires developers and deployers of clinical decision support systems to identify tools with a risk of biased impacts, mitigate those risks and monitor the systems once deployed. He vetoed AB 2575, which sponsors say would have protected healthcare workers from retaliation for overriding AI recommendations; California Nurses Association president Sandy Reding said that after the veto, a nurse who acts against a wrong algorithm “can still be disciplined or fired.”