This bill addresses correctional health care.
This bill:
- defines terms;
- requires the Department of Health and Human Services (department) to contract with a telehealth psychiatric consultation provider to provide consultation services to staff responsible for inmates' psychiatric care;
- requires the department to convene a working group to study the department's needs regarding an electronic health record system for inmate health care and, if the current electronic health record system does not meet the department's needs, requires the department to contract for a new system;
- requires the department to contract with psychiatrists to meet staffing needs for correctional health services, except under certain circumstances;
- requires the department to provide an annual report to the Health and Human Services Interim Committee concerning the provision of comprehensive health care to inmates;
- provides that money appropriated to the department to pay for unanticipated high-cost correctional health expenses is non-lapsing;
- requires the department, in consultation with the Department of Corrections, to prepare and implement a plan for providing substance use disorder treatment to all inmates who suffer from a substance use disorder, and requires the Department of Corrections to cooperate with the department in providing medication assisted treatment pursuant to that plan;
- allows the director of the Division of Human Resource Management to create a classification plan for employee positions responsible for providing comprehensive health care to inmates in a correctional facility that accounts for the specific challenges of providing health care in a correctional facility;
- allows the Board of Pardons and Parole (board) to appoint a designated examiner and to consider designated examiners' reports when considering when and under what conditions an offender may be paroled, and allows the board to require assisted outpatient treatment as a condition of parole; and
- makes technical and conforming changes.
Recommended by: Health and Human Services Interim Committee

Statutes affected:
Introduced: 26B-1-235, 26B-1-410, 63A-17-307, 63I-2-264, 64-13-25.1, 77-27-5, 77-27-7