The Legislature finds and declares that every person having ultimate responsibility for decisions respecting his or her own health care also possesses a concomitant right of access to complete information respecting his or her condition and care provided. Similarly, persons having responsibility for decisions respecting the health care of others should, in general, have access to information on the patient‘s condition and care. It is, therefore, the intent of the Legislature in enacting this chapter to establish procedures for providing access to health care records or summaries of those records by patients and by those persons having responsibility for decisions respecting the health care of others.

(Added by Stats. 1995, Ch. 415, Sec. 8. Effective January 1, 1996.)