BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 503
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Date of Hearing: April 15, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
AB
503 (Rodriguez) - As Amended March 23, 2015
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY:
This bill allows a health facility to release patient
identifiable medical information to an emergency medical
services (EMS) provider or a local EMS agency (LEMSA) for
specified quality improvement purposes, and requires the
AB 503
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Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA) to develop minimum
standards for the implementation of a related data collection
system.
FISCAL EFFECT:
Minor staff costs to EMSA to revise existing regulations,
estimated at around $20,000 (existing federal grant funds).
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. According to the author, prehospital providers of
emergency medical care or transport, such as ambulance
companies, need patient-identifiable outcomes in order to
evaluate the effectiveness of their clinical and operational
procedures to improve patient care and outcomes. This bill
would explicitly allow hospitals to share such information.
Additionally, it requires EMSA to establish statewide data
collection standards to ensure uniformity and comparability.
2)Background. Individually identifiable health information,
called "protected health information" (PHI) is protected by
state and federal law that limits disclosures by entities
subject to the laws to specified purposes, including medical
care and treatment, public health, and other narrowly
specified purposes. A recent review of prehospital care in
the state, conducted in 2012 by EMSA with foundation support,
identified standardized collection of prehospital data as a
key strategy for evaluating and improving the EMS system.
3)Related Legislation. AB 1129 (Burke), pending hearing in the
Assembly Health Committee, requires an emergency medical care
provider, when collecting and sharing data with a LEMSA, to
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use a system compatible with existing state and national
standards.
1)Prior Legislation. AB 1621 (Lowenthal and Rodriguez) of 2014,
required EMSA to develop the a data collection system to
assess each EMS area or LEMSAs service area to determine the
need for additional EMS services, coordination of EMS
services, and the effectiveness of EMS. AB 1621 was held on
the Suspense file in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Analysis Prepared by:Lisa Murawski / APPR. / (916)
319-2081