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House Bill 2673 |
House Author: Price |
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Effective: 6-14-13 |
Senate Sponsor: Nelson et al. |
House Bill 2673 amends the Government Code and the Health and Safety Code to entitle the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to obtain certain criminal history record information that relates to an employee, job applicant, volunteer, or person applying to volunteer who would be placed in direct contact with a resident or client of certain residential facilities and expand the applicants for whom HHSC and certain other agencies are entitled to obtain such criminal history record information and required to perform state and federal criminal history background checks.
Previous law required the death of a person with an intellectual or developmental disability who, at the time of death, resided in or received services from certain ICF/IIDs or received certain services through a Section 1915(c) waiver program to be reviewed by an independent mortality review system established by the executive commissioner of HHSC. House Bill 2673 expands the scope of the review to include the death of a person who resided in such a facility or received such services at any time during the 24-hour period before the person's death and modifies certain requirements relating to the review of the death of a person receiving services through a Section 1915(c) waiver program.
House Bill 2673 requires the executive commissioner of HHSC to contract with an institution of higher education or a health care organization or association with experience in conducting research-based mortality studies to conduct these reviews, rather than to contract with a patient safety organization certified in accordance with federal law to conduct mortality reviews of persons with an intellectual or developmental disability. The bill revises certain reporting requirements for the organization contracted to conduct the mortality reviews. The bill provides for the confidentiality and privileged nature of certain reports and records relating to a mortality review and prohibits a member of the contracted organization's review team from testifying or being required to testify in a civil, criminal, or administrative proceeding as to observations, factual findings, or conclusions that were made in conducting a mortality review.