SB 26: California Health Care Cost and Quality Database.

Existing law establishes health care coverage programs to provide health care to segments of the population meeting specified criteria who are otherwise unable to afford health care coverage and provides for the licensure and regulation of health insurers and health care service plans.

This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to establish a system to provide valid, timely, and comprehensive health care performance information that is publicly available and can be used to improve the safety, appropriateness, and medical effectiveness of health care, and to provide care that is safe, medically effective, patient-centered, timely, affordable, and equitable. The bill would require the Secretary of California Health and Human Services to, no later than January 1, 2017, enter into a contract with one or more independent, nonprofit organizations to administer the California Health Care Cost and Quality Database. The bill would require the secretary to include specified terms in that contract or contracts, including, among others, that the nonprofit organization or organizations administering the California Health Care Cost and Quality Database develop methodologies relating to the submission of health care data by health care entities. The bill would require certain health care entities, including health care service plans, to provide specified information to the nonprofit organization or organizations administering the California Health Care Cost and Quality Database. The bill would authorize the nonprofit organization or organizations to report a health care entity that fails to comply with that requirement to the health care entitys regulating agency, and would authorize the regulating agency to enforce that requirement using its existing enforcement procedures.

The bill would require all data disclosures made pursuant to these provisions to comply with all applicable state and federal laws for the protection of the privacy and security of data and would prohibit the public disclosure of any unaggregated, individually identifiable health information. The bill would require that certain confidentially negotiated contract terms be protected in data disclosures made pursuant to these provisions and would prohibit certain individually identifiable proprietary contract information from being disclosed in an unaggregated format. The bill would require the nonprofit organization or organizations administering the California Health Care Cost and Quality Database to receive, process, maintain, and analyze information from specified data sources, including, among others, disease and chronic condition registries. The bill would require, no later than January 1, 2019, the nonprofit organization or organizations administering the California Health Care Cost and Quality Database to publicly make available a web-based, searchable database and would require that database to be updated regularly. The bill would prohibit implementation and ongoing administration costs of the California Health Care Cost and Quality Database from being paid using General Fund moneys.

This bill would also require the secretary to convene a review committee composed of a broad spectrum of health care stakeholders and experts, as specified, to, among other things, develop the parameters for establishing, implementing, and administering the California Health Care Cost and Quality Database. The bill would require the secretary to arrange for the preparation of an annual report to the Legislature and the Governor that examines and addresses specified issues, including, among others, containing the cost of health care services and coverage. The bill would provide that the commission not be convened until the Director of Finance has determined that sufficient private or federal funds have been received and appropriated for that purpose, and that members of the committee not receive a per diem or travel expense reimbursement, or any other expense reimbursement.

Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest.

This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.