Bill > S2502

Introduced Session

This bill requires the Commissioner of Health (commissioner) to develop comprehensive policies and procedures to be followed by every hospital providing inpatient maternity services, and every birthing center licensed in the State pursuant to P.L.1971, c.136 (C.26:2H-1 et seq.), in the State, for the collection and dissemination of data on maternity care. The bill would require the Department of Health (DOH) to establish a maternity care evaluation protocol that every hospital and every birthing center would be required to follow in order to collect hospital discharge data relevant to maternity care, including, but not limited to de-identified information outlined under the bill. The Department of Health is to evaluate the data collected under the maternity care evaluation protocol for the purposes of: facilitating a data-based review of the provision of maternity care services in the State in order to identify potential improvements in the provisions of such services; generating Statewide perinatal and provider-level quality metrics; establishing Statewide and regional objective benchmarks that promote improvements in maternal health outcomes and the quality of maternity care, and comparing the performance every hospital and birthing center in the State to such benchmarks; identifying data quality issues that may directly impact the performance of hospitals and birthing centers in providing maternity care services; encouraging hospitals and birthing centers that provide inpatient maternity services to participate in quality improvement collaboratives; and researching the association between clinical practices, the quality of maternal care, and maternal health care outcomes. No later than one year after the enactment of the bill, and every year after, the commissioner would report to the Governor and the Legislature pursuant to section 2 of P.L.1991, c.164 (C.52:14-19.1), on the findings of the evaluation required pursuant to the bill. The report would include any recommendations for legislative action that the commissioner deems appropriate.

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Teresa Ruiz (D)*, 

Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee (on 02/05/2024)

Official Document