California Office of Statewide Health Planning & Development

Senate Bill 1953 (SB 1953) requires hospitals that have buildings that are considered hazardous and at risk of collapse or significant loss of life in the event of an earthquake or other natural disaster must be replaced or retrofitted to higher seismic safety standards by 2013, or later with an approved extension. A slide presentation of OSHPD's testimony on Hospital Seismic Safety before the California Senate Health Committee on Februrary 17, 2010 is now available at the above links.

New Regulations Require Hospitals to Report Medical Adverse Event Data Beginning January 1, 2010 - Hospitals licensed by California Department of Public Health must report Emergency Department, Ambulatory Surgery, and Inpatient data about external cause of patient injuries, including never events (such as surgery on the wrong-body part, and adverse drug reactions). This will provide greater transparency about the quality of the State's healthcare services.

Since 1990, hospitals have reported other external causes of injury codes (called E-codes) to OSHPD. The expanded collection of E-codes will help public health officials, public policymakers, health researchers and others determine the prevalence of such injuries, and develop effective strategies to minimize their occurrence in order to reduce any harm caused or cost associated with these injuries.

“MRSA Infections in California Hospital Patients, 1999 to 2007” is the second in the Health Facts series, reporting on healthcare in California. It uses OSHPD's hospital patient discharge data to describe trends and patterns related to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection among California hospital patients, 1999-2007. The percent of S. aureus infection cases that were resistant to antibiotic treatment are shown in relation to patients’ ages, race/ethnicity, and whether they came to the hospital from home or from another healthcare setting. It also compares resistant (MRSA) and non-resistant cases in terms of their hospital costs, hospital length of stay and 30-mortality rates.

These reports provide seismic compliance status information for Acute Care Hospitals that have SPC-1 Buildings.

Common Surgeries and Price Comparison is a new Web tool allowing healthcare consumers to view and compare the price of 28 common elective inpatient procedures at hospitals across California.

This report provides quality ratings for the 121 hospitals and 284 cardiac surgeons who performed 32,586 isolated heart bypass surgeries during 2005-2006.

Hospital Inpatient Mortality Indicators for California, 2006 and 2007, compare the quality of care of California hospitals on their mortality rates for 5 procedures and 3 conditions including stroke, hip fractures, and brain surgery. The indicators are risk-adjusted, taking into account patients’ pre-existing health problems to “level the field” and allow fair comparisons among hospitals.

Mortality in California Hospitals is the first in a series of research briefs about the quality and safety of healthcare in California’s hospitals. “Mortality in California Hospitals, 2006” provides information on patient deaths that occurred in a hospital. The brief identifies in-hospital mortality rates, top 5 admitting diagnoses of patients that die in-hospital, end-of-life preferences, conditions associated with higher mortality rates and factors that most strongly predict death.