BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 1812 Page 1 CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS AB 1812 (Pan) As Amended June 17, 2014 Majority vote ----------------------------------------------------------------- |ASSEMBLY: |75-0 |(April 24, |SENATE: |32-0 |(June 26, | | | |2014) | | |2014) | ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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