The Weekly Articles

CSHA publications committee member Katie Howells welcomed baby Emmy Jane Howells on June 23, 2023. 

A recent decision on Meta’s motion to dismiss in a case alleging that the Pixel allowed Meta to intercept private health information provides insight into the court’s analysis of the thirteen alleged claims.

As California’s new Office of Health Care Affordability gets ready to start advance regulatory review of certain health care entity transactions, the proposed regulations raise issues about some processes and timelines that are worth noting.

Aaron Bloom recently started a new position as Assistant General Counsel for the California Public Utilities Commission.

Jalena Bingham recently started a new position as Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Kaiser.

In the past year there has been a flurry of efforts, both state and federal, to draft and propose rules to control the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare. Most importantly, how to ensure that the use of AI in healthcare will not result in bias decision-making. Currently, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), is seeking answers to such questions in a recently released White Paper on the subject.

The Weekly is being reposted to correct a typo in Rachel Nosowsky’s name in the previously published article. We apologize for the error. 

UC San Francisco has recently appointed Rachel Nosowsky as the first chief counsel for UCSF Health to advise and guide the expanding enterprise and lead a team of attorneys in support of health priorities.  Ms. Nosowsky has worked for more than two decades in public academic medicine. In her new role, she will serve as a member of the UCSF Health executive team and steer the legal function of the health system, as well as the student health and counseling center at the UCSF campus.

In recent years, government officials and industry players alike have criticized what they view as a fragmented, patchwork approach to health data exchange. California lawmakers responded to these concerns in July 2021 by passing Assembly Bill 133, enacting California Health and Safety Code Section 130290 and putting California on the path to building a statewide Data Exchange Framework (DxF). After a year of development, on July 1, 2022, the California Health and Human Services Agency (CalHHS) adopted the DxF, and released final versions of the data sharing agreement (DSA) and initial policies and procedures (P&Ps) that govern and mandate “real-time” access to, or exchange of, health information.

Notably, the DxF is not a statewide centralized health information exchange network. Instead, it is “technology agnostic.” In other words, mandated and voluntary participants do not need to use a new information exchange network; they can continue to share health information through any existing exchange network, health information organization, or other technology that adheres to the DxF’s specified standards and policies.

A. Joel Richlin was sworn in on July 31, 2023 as a United States Magistrate Judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of California.  Judge Richlin will preside over matters in Los Angeles in the Court’s Western Division. Judge Richlin succeeds former Magistrate Judge Alexander F. MacKinnon.

Since 1972 “[a]ll information and records obtained in the course of providing [mental health] services … to either voluntary or involuntary recipients of services are confidential.”  Welf. & Inst. Code § 5328(a).  This broad declaration of confidentiality, however, is subject to numerous exceptions (“Information and records shall be disclosed only in any of the following cases:”)  The statute today includes twenty-seven such ‘cases’”, the most recent of which provides for disclosure of information and records:

(27)  To parties to a judicial or administrative proceeding as permitted by law, and who satisfy the requirements under Part 164 (commencing with Section 164.512(e)) of Subchapter C of Subtitle A of Title 45 of the Code of Federal Regulations, except that this paragraph shall not be construed to affect any rights or privileges provided under law of any party or nonparty.