Behavioral health multidisciplinary personnel team.

Assembly Member Quirk-Silva's behavioral health coordination measure enables California counties to establish multidisciplinary teams focused on connecting justice-involved individuals with mental illness to supportive services during and after incarceration. The teams would comprise behavioral health practitioners, medical personnel, social workers, and case managers who can share confidential information to ensure continuity of care.

The legislation creates a framework for secure information sharing among team members and provider agencies, including social services, health services, behavioral health, substance abuse treatment, probation, law enforcement, legal counsel, veterans services, homeless services, and tribal programs. Counties must develop detailed protocols governing what information can be shared, establish data security requirements, and implement privacy training for personnel. These protocols must be distributed to participating agencies and posted publicly within 30 days of adoption.

Team members receiving confidential information are bound by the same privacy obligations as the original information providers, with unauthorized disclosure subject to existing civil and criminal penalties. The measure explicitly preserves all current state and federal privacy protections, including HIPAA, the Information Practices Act, and the Confidentiality of Medical Information Act. Counties implementing these teams must ensure all information sharing complies with established administrative, technical and physical safeguards for protecting sensitive data.