BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  AB 1812
                                                                  Page  1

          CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
          AB 1812 (Pan)
          As Amended June 17, 2014
          Majority vote
           
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          |ASSEMBLY:  |75-0 |(April 24,      |SENATE: |32-0 |(June 26,      |
          |           |     |2014)           |        |     |2014)          |
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           Original Committee Reference:    HEALTH  

           SUMMARY  :  Authorizes the Office of Statewide Health Planning and  
          Development (OSHPD) to release confidential hospital  
          patient-level data to the United States Department of Health and  
          Human Services (HHS) and its subsidiary agencies and to the  
          Veterans Health Care Administration, under specific data use  
          agreements.

           The Senate amendments  expand the list of federal agencies  
          authorized to receive the data described above to include Tribal  
          Epidemiology Centers.

           AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill authorized OSHPD to release  
          confidential hospital patient-level data to HHS and its  
          subsidiary agencies and the Veterans Health Care Administration,  
          under specific data use agreements.  

           FISCAL EFFECT  :  According to the Senate Appropriations  
          Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs.

           COMMENTS :  According to the author, OSHPD hospital inpatient,  
          outpatient, and emergency department patient-level data is a  
          primary source of information on population health, utilization  
          of healthcare services, and disease surveillance and allowing  
          OSHPD to release confidential hospital patient-level data to the  
          additional federal entities will allow them to better assess  
          population health needs in allocating federal funds, publicly  
          reporting geographic, demographic, or other variations in  
          healthcare and in developing interventions to improve population  
          heath.

          In 1980 the Legislature authorized OSHPD to collect hospital  
          inpatient discharge data from California licensed general acute  
          care hospitals, and 1998 amendments authorized collection of  








                                                                  AB 1812
                                                                 Page  2

          hospital emergency department patient data and outpatient  
          ambulatory surgery clinic patient data.  This data, as reported  
          to OSHPD, are deemed confidential personal information and not  
          available to the public in its raw form.  A variety of extracts,  
          summaries, and de-identified public use files are prepared from  
          these data and disseminated by OSHPD.  However, many potential  
          uses for the patient data require access to and use of data  
          elements that are deemed confidential.  The release of such  
          confidential data is provided for by law, but only under  
          strictly controlled circumstances and only to specified  
          entities. 

          Since 1980 OSHPD has released confidential data subsets for  
          scientific research to the University of California and other  
          non-profit educational institutions under the auspices of the  
          Information Practices Act.
           

          Analysis Prepared by  :    Lara Flynn / HEALTH / (916) 319-2097  
          FN: 0004077