# Maternal Health Quality Improvement Act

This bill focuses on making sure pregnant women and new mothers receive better quality care and that healthcare providers track how well they're doing their jobs. The law would require hospitals and healthcare systems to measure and report on specific aspects of maternal care—things like whether women are getting screened for depression after giving birth, whether they're receiving appropriate pain management, and whether they're being treated respectfully during labor and delivery. The idea is that by collecting this data and making it public, hospitals will have incentive to improve their practices, and patients will have better information about where to receive care.

The bill also aims to address racial and ethnic disparities in maternal health outcomes, which is a significant problem in the United States. It would require healthcare providers to break down their performance data by race and ethnicity so that gaps in care become visible and can be addressed. This matters because Black women, Native American women, and other women of color face higher rates of pregnancy-related complications and death compared to white women, often due to differences in how they're treated by the healthcare system.

For most people, this bill wouldn't create new requirements for individual patients, but it would affect how hospitals operate behind the scenes. Healthcare facilities would need to invest in tracking systems and quality improvement programs. The bill could lead to better outcomes for pregnant women by pushing hospitals to adopt evidence-based practices and address bias in care. It may also result in more transparency, allowing pregnant women and their families to see how different hospitals compare on maternal health measures before choosing where to receive care.

Maternal Health Quality Improvement Act

Warnock, Raphael G.

Maternal Health Quality Improvement Act This bill requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish specified grant programs to support positive maternal health care outcomes for pregnant and postpartum women and their infants. Specifically, HHS must award grants to (1) develop best practices to reduce preventable maternal mortality, and (2) train health care professionals to reduce and prevent discrimination when providing maternal health services. In addition, HHS may award grants to establish evidence-informed, integrated health care services to pregnant and postpartum women and their infants. The bill also provides statutory authority for a grant program that supports perinatal quality collaboratives. These are networks of perinatal care providers and public health professionals that work to improve pregnancy outcomes through continuous quality improvement. HHS also must contract with an independent research organization to study and make recommendations on trainings for health professional schools and education programs on reducing and preventing discrimination in the provision of maternal health services.