The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the Georgetown University Health Privacy Project surveyed California health care organizations to assess how implementation efforts were proceeding under the Federal Health Privacy Rule issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The survey, conducted in January and February 2002 (prior to the March 27, 2002 release by HHS of proposed rule modifications) was intended to distinguish between the real and perceived barriers to compliance and to use the results to inform policymakers and public debate. The survey represents the views of 100 health care organizations that do business in California, including 29 hospitals, 19 physician groups, 26 health plans, and 26 other organizations such as disease management organizations, clearinghouses, medical management groups, behavioral health care organizations, and researchers.

The complete survey reports are available under Document Downloads below. The executive summary (12 pages) includes highlights of the study’s methods, key findings, and the list of survey respondents. A detailed description and additional data can be found in the full report (22 pages). Within the file of the appendices to the full report (199 pages) are internal links to access the various appendices: information on the preliminary interviews, the questionnaire, survey protocol outcomes, pie charts, bar charts, data frequency sheets, verbatim responses, characteristics of respondents, and the list of survey respondents.