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.