Health facilities: information: disclosure.

Existing law requires health facilities to file specified reports with the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. These reports include a Hospital Discharge Abstract Data Record, an Emergency Care Data Record, and an Ambulatory Surgery Data Record, which contain information regarding each patient. Existing law requires the office to maintain a file containing these reports and, subject to any rules the office may prescribe, requires that these reports be produced and made available for inspection upon the demand of any person, with the exception of hospital discharge abstract data that is required to be made available unless the office determines that an individual patient's rights of confidentiality would be violated. Existing law requires the office, notwithstanding any other law, to disclose, upon request, information contained in the above records to any California hospital and any local health department or local health officer. Existing law requires the office to disclose that same information to the National Center for Health Statistics or any other unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, for conducting a statutorily authorized activity, except as specified. This bill would expand the list of federal agencies authorized to receive the disclosures of information described above to include the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Indian Health Service, Tribal Epidemiology Centers, as defined, the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, and the Veterans Health Care Administration within the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.