Section 1250.05.

(a)  All general acute care hospitals licensed under this chapter shall maintain a medical records system, based upon current standards for medical record retrieval and storage, that organizes all medical records for each patient under a unique identifier.

(b)  This section shall not require electronic records or require that all portions of patients' records be stored in a single location.

(c)  In addition, all general acute care hospitals shall have the ability to identify the location of all portions of a patient's medical record that are maintained under the general acute care hospital's license.

(d)  All general acute care hospitals, including those holding a consolidated general acute care license pursuant to Section 1250.8, shall develop and implement policies and procedures to ensure that relevant portions of patients' medical records can be made available within a reasonable period of time to respond to the request of a treating physician, other authorized medical professionals, authorized representatives of the department, or any other person authorized by law to make such a request, taking into consideration the physical location of the records and hours of operation of the facility where those records are located, as well as the best interests of the patients.

(Added by Stats. 1998, Ch. 310, Sec. 12. Effective August 19, 1998.)