BILL ANALYSIS H.B. 1491 By: Sadler (Nixon) Health and Human Services 05-17-95 Senate Committee Report (Unamended) BACKGROUND Section 81.051, Health and Safety Code, establishes the Texas Department of Health partner notification program for persons with HIV. Current law requires an employee of the program to notify the partner of a person with HIV only if the infected person voluntarily discloses the partner's name. The law also requires the program to provide counseling, testing, and referral services. All of the information the program collects is confidential. PURPOSE As proposed, H.B. 1491 requires a health care professional, as part of the partner notification program for persons with HIV, to notify a partner of an individual who is infected with HIV regardless of the consent of the individual with HIV. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, institution, or agency. SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS SECTION 1. Amends Section 81.051, Health and Safety Code, by adding Subsections (g) and (h), and relettering current Subsections (g)-(i), as follows: (g) Requires a partner notification program for individuals with HIV to be carried out as follows: requires a partner notification program to make the notification of a partner of a person with HIV infection in the manner authorized by this section regardless of whether the person with HIV infection who gave the partner's name consents to the notification, and a health care professional to notify the partner notification program when the health care professional knows the HIV+ status of a patient and the health care professional has actual knowledge of the possible transmission of HIV to a third party. Requires this notification to be carried out in the manner authorized in this section and Section 81.103. (h) Makes a health care professional who fails to make the notification under Subsection (g) immune from civil or criminal liability for failure to make that notification. (i)-(k) Redesignate existing Subsections (g)-(i). SECTION 2. Emergency clause. Effective date: upon passage.