Amends TCA Title 4; Title 33; Title 63; Title 68 and Title 71.

This bill requires the department of health, in collaboration with the maternal mortality review and prevention team, to create an evidence-based implicit bias training program for healthcare professionals. The implicit bias training program must include, at a minimum, the following: (1) Identification of previous or current unconscious biases and misinformation; (2) Identification of personal, interpersonal, institutional, structural, and cultural barriers to inclusion; (3) Corrective measures to decrease implicit bias at the interpersonal and institutional levels, including ongoing policies and practices for that purpose; (4) Information about the effects, including, but not limited to, ongoing personal effects, of historical and contemporary exclusion and oppression of minority communities; (5) Information about cultural identity across racial or ethnic groups; (6) Information about how to communicate more effectively across identities, including racial, ethnic, religious, and gender identities; (7) Information about power dynamics and organizational decision-making; (8) Information about health inequities within the perinatal care field, including information on how implicit bias impacts maternal and infant health outcomes; (9) Perspectives of diverse, local constituency groups and experts on particular racial-, identity-, cultural-, and provider-community relations issues in the community; and (10) Information about socioeconomic bias. This bill also requires a healthcare professional who holds a current license, registration, accreditation, or certification on December 31, 2021, to, no later than December 31, 2022, complete the implicit bias training program created pursuant to this bill. A healthcare professional who is issued an initial license, registration, accreditation, or certification on or after January 1, 2022, must complete the training no later than one year after the date of issuance. This bill prohibits a licensing authority from renewing a credential unless the healthcare professional provides proof that the healthcare professional completed the implicit bias training program. This bill requires the department to collect the following information for the purpose of informing ongoing improvements to the implicit bias training program: (1) Data on the causes of infant and maternal mortality; (2) Rates of infant and maternal mortality, including rates distinguished by age, race, ethnicity, and geographic location within this state; and (3) Other factors the department deems relevant for informing and improving the implicit bias training program. This bill provides that a perinatal care patient has the following minimum rights: (1) To be informed of continuing healthcare requirements following discharge from the hospital; (2) To be informed that, if the patient so authorizes, and to the extent permitted by law, a friend or family member may be provided information about the patient's continuing healthcare requirements following discharge from the hospital; (3) To actively participate in decisions regarding medical care and the right to refuse treatment; (4) To appropriate pain assessment and treatment; (5) To be free from discrimination on the basis of age, race, color, religion, ancestry, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, citizenship, nationality, immigration status, primary language, or language proficiency; and (6) To information on how to file a grievance with the following: (A) The department of health and the division of health related boards; and (B) The human rights commission. This bill requires a facility that provides perinatal care to provide to each perinatal care patient upon admission to the facility, or as soon as reasonably practical following admission to the facility, a written copy of the rights enumerated above. For the purpose of promulgating rules, this bill will take effect upon becoming a law. For all other purposes, this bill will take effect January 1, 2022.