Cal. Health & Safety Code § 128736 — Health Facility Data

(a)  Each hospital shall file an Emergency Care Data Record for each patient encounter in a hospital emergency department. The Emergency Care Data Record shall include all of the following:

(1)  Date of birth.

(2)  Sex.

(3)  Race.

(4)  Ethnicity.

(5)  Preferred language spoken.

(6)  ZIP Code.

(7)  Patient social security number, if it is contained in the patient’s medical record.

(8)  Service date.

(9)  Principal diagnosis.

(10)  Other diagnoses.

(11)  External causes of morbidity.

(12) Principal procedure.

(13) Other procedures.

(14) Disposition of patient.

(15) Expected source of payment.

(16) Elements added pursuant to Section 128738.

(b)  It is the expressed intent of the Legislature that the patient’s rights of confidentiality shall not be violated in any manner. Patient social security numbers and any other data elements that the department believes could be used to determine the identity of an individual patient shall be exempt from the disclosure requirements of the California Public Records Act (Division 10 (commencing with Section 7920.000) of Title 1 of the Government Code).

(c)  No person reporting data pursuant to this section shall be liable for damages in any action based on the use or misuse of patient-identifiable data that has been mailed or otherwise transmitted to the department pursuant to the requirements of subdivision (a).

(d)  Data reporting requirements established by the department shall be consistent with national standards as applicable.

(e)  This section shall become operative on January 1, 2004.