BILL ANALYSIS �
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
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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