Committee advances bill to create regional perinatal advisory committee; expands data access for maternal‑mortality review

The committee unanimously passed House Bill 89 on Thursday, establishing a regional perinatal center advisory committee to coordinate services among Georgia's six regional perinatal centers and to advise whether an additional center is needed.

"What House Bill 89 does is, very important to our state. It sets up a regional perinatal center advisory committee," the bill's sponsor said as the committee considered the measure. The sponsor said the state currently has six centers and that an additional center may be necessary in the Atlanta region because it covers a large number of counties.

Megan Andrews, assistant commissioner for policy at the Georgia Department of Public Health, described the advisory committee as an output of a recent meeting among the department, regional perinatal centers and the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD). "This is an output from that meeting where we were working with the regional perinatal centers to develop priorities for this session," Andrews said. She told the committee the advisory group will "be looking at the hospital‑based system of care" and recommend whether to add another regional perinatal center and where it should be located.

The bill also addresses the state maternal mortality review process. The sponsor and Andrews said the Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC) will continue its case‑by‑case review of maternal deaths, but the advisory committee and MMRC roles will remain distinct: the MMRC conducts in‑depth reviews of deaths while the new advisory committee will focus on hospital‑based systems of care.

Committee members discussed barriers to obtaining psychiatric and behavioral‑health records for mortality reviews. "There's stricter confidentiality provisions around access to mental‑health records," Andrews said, describing why mental‑health providers have sometimes declined to share records with reviewers. The bill makes clear that the review committee should have access to psychiatric records needed to conduct maternal‑mortality reviews and to recommend improvements.

A motion to pass was made and recorded in the transcript by Senator Mangum and seconded by Chairman Brass; the committee approved the bill by unanimous voice vote. No amendments were recorded in the committee discussion.