HBA-DMH H.B. 2160 77(R) BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 2160 By: Coleman Public Health 3/28/2001 Introduced BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Immunization registries provide benefits for parents, communities, providers, and public health officials. Immunization registries help control vaccine-preventable diseases, identify high risk and underimmunized populations, prevent disease outbreaks, and help streamline vaccine management. The immunization registry (registry), created in 1997, has become a voluntary participation system. Instead of immunization information automatically being included in the registry, parents must make a request to have their children included. Participation has been sporadic so the information in the registry is inadequate to serve public health goals. House Bill 2160 makes inclusion of immunization information automatic and permits parents to request to have their children excluded from the immunization registry. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that rulemaking authority is expressly delegated to the Texas Department of Health in SECTION 1 (Section 161.007, Health and Safety Code) of this bill. ANALYSIS House Bill 2160 amends the Health and Safety Code to modify the guidelines that the Texas Department of Health (TDH) by rule is required to develop relating to exclusion from the immunization registry (registry) by permitting a parent, managing conservator, or guardian of a patient (guardian) to choose to have the patient excluded from the registry, rather than requiring written consent from the guardian before any patient information is included in the registry. The bill expands the group of health care providers required to provide an immunization history to TDH to include an emergency medical service provider who administers an immunization to a person younger than 18 years of age unless the immunization history is submitted to an insurance company, a health maintenance organization, or another organization that pays or reimburses the claim. The bill requires TDH to consult with reporting health care providers and other reporting entities to determine the most efficient and cost-effective manner of reporting immunization histories (Sec. 161.007). The bill provides that the notice TDH is authorized to provide to a guardian that immunizations are due or overdue according to TDH's immunization schedule must contain instructions for the guardian to request that future notices not be sent and to remove the child's immunization record from the registry and any other registry related records. The bill provides that the notice must describe the procedure to report a violation if a child is included in the registry after exclusion is requested (Sec. 161.007). The first time TDH receives immunization data for a child, the bill requires TDH to send a written notification to the child's guardian disclosing certain registry information, including information relating to the access and use of the data and the procedure to exclude a child from the registry. The bill sets forth requirements for TDH to exclude an immunization record from the registry and provides for confidentiality of the registry's records (Secs. 161.0071 and 161.0072). The bill authorizes TDH, if it does not receive the written request to exclude the child, to enter a child into the registry and to release the immunization data to specified entities that provide immunization services to the child or to a school or child care facility in which the child is enrolled. The bill authorizes TDH to: _release nonidentifying summary statistics related to the registry that do not individually identify a child; _develop a secure internet-based system by which a school or child-care facility may verify a child's immunization record for immunizations required in the Education Code; and _share with other state health departments information relating to the registry that does not individually identify any child (Sec. 161.008). The bill requires TDH to report to the Legislative Budget Board, the governor, the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the house of representatives and the appropriate health committees of the house and senate not later than December 1 of each even-numbered year. The bill requires TDH to use the report to develop ways to increase immunization rates using state and federal resources and provides for the contents of the report (Sec.161.0075). EFFECTIVE DATE On passage, or if the Act does not receive the necessary vote, the Act takes effect September 1, 2001.