Senate subcommittee carries two maternal and infant review-team bills forward amid budget crunch

A Senate of Virginia health subcommittee on Thursday carried over two health bills that would create or expand state review teams to study fetal deaths, infant deaths and severe maternal morbidity, citing current budget constraints.

House Bill 1398 would "formally establish a state level fetal and infant mortality review team within the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner," Delegate Franklin said during the committee presentation. She described the proposal as bipartisan and said it would mandate multidisciplinary review of fetal and infant deaths to identify systemic failures and recommend community-based interventions. The committee heard the measure carries an estimated fiscal impact of about $850,000 per year that is not in the Senate budget.

Keisha Singleton of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) told the committee the existing child fatality review team reviews primarily unnatural deaths, and that a fetal and infant mortality review team would be distinct work requiring new staff and funding. "They currently review unnatural deaths," Singleton said. She added that the fetal-and-infant review would examine natural death cases as well and that "this team is currently not funded" in statute or budget, meaning a new staffing structure would be required.

House Bill 1403 would expand Virginia's maternal mortality review to include severe maternal morbidity — near-miss events such as severe infections or bleeding — and would require the Virginia Department of Health to maintain a public, interactive dashboard with regional and demographic breakdowns. Vanessa Walker Harris of the Department of Health said the department already maintains statewide data but that formal case review for near-miss events and the sharing of review findings with birthing centers would be a new area of work for the agency.

Committee members repeatedly expressed support for the policy goals but said the current fiscal environment made immediate adoption difficult. "I'm very sympathetic to this," Senator Favola said, urging work on the items in an off year. The committee voted to carry both bills over for later consideration rather than advancing them this session.

Next steps cited by committee members included seeking a Senate sponsor where appropriate and returning the measures with budget language in a future session. The committee did not adopt the bills during this hearing and did not record a roll-call tally on the carryover motions; action on both measures is expected only after additional budget work or off-year study.

The committee discussion placed the two measures in the broader context of maternal and infant health policy and data transparency: presenters emphasized the intent to identify preventable causes and coordinate community interventions, while budget reviewers emphasized the need to identify funding sources before implementation.