§ 2310-223 — Maternal care

(a) The Department shall establish a classification system for the following levels of maternal care: (1) basic care: care of uncomplicated pregnancies with the ability to detect, stabilize, and initiate management of unanticipated maternal-fetal or neonatal problems that occur during the antepartum, intrapartum, or postpartum period until the patient can be transferred to a facility at which specialty maternal care is available; (2) specialty care: basic care plus care of appropriate high-risk antepartum, intrapartum, or postpartum conditions, both directly admitted and transferred to another facility; (3) subspecialty care: specialty care plus care of more complex maternal medical conditions, obstetric complications, and fetal conditions; and (4) regional perinatal health care: subspecialty care plus on-site medical and surgical care of the most complex maternal conditions, critically ill pregnant women, and fetuses throughout antepartum, intrapartum, and postpartum care. (b) The Department shall: (1) introduce uniform designations for levels of maternal care that are complementary but distinct from levels of neonatal care; (2) establish clear, uniform criteria for designation of maternal centers that are integrated with emergency response systems to help ensure that the appropriate personnel, physical space, equipment, and technology are available to achieve optimal outcomes, as well as to facilitate subsequent data collection regarding risk-appropriate care; (3) require each health care facility to have a clear understanding of its capability to handle increasingly complex levels of maternal care, and to have a well-defined threshold for transferring women to health care facilities that offer a higher level of care; to ensure optimal care of all pregnant women, the Department shall require all birth centers, hospitals, and higher-level facilities to collaborate in order to develop and maintain maternal and neonatal transport plans and cooperative agreements capable of managing the health care needs of women who develop complications; the Department shall require that receiving hospitals openly accept transfers; (4) require higher-level facilities to provide training for quality improvement initiatives, educational support, and severe morbidity and mortality case review for lower-level hospitals; the Department shall ensure that, in those regions that do not have a facility that qualifies as a regional perinatal health care facility, any specialty care facility in the region will provide the educational and consultation function; (5) require facilities and regional systems to develop methods to track severe maternal morbidity and mortality to assess the efficacy of utilizing maternal levels of care; (6) analyze data collected from all facilities and regional systems in order to inform future updates to the levels of maternal care; (7) require follow-up interdisciplinary work groups to further explore the implementation needs that are necessary to adopt the proposed classification system for levels of maternal care in all facilities that provide maternal care; (8) disseminate data and materials to raise public awareness about the importance of prenatal care and maternal health; (9) engage the Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics in creating a quality improvement initiative to expand efforts of pediatricians conducting postpartum depression screening at well baby visits during the first year of life; and (10) adopt rules in accordance with the Illinois Administrative Procedure Act to implement this subsection.

Legislative History

(Source: P.A. 101-447, eff. 8-23-19; 102-558, eff. 8-20-21; 102-813, eff. 5-13-22.)