WELLS Act
Sponsored By: Senator Blunt Rochester, Lisa [D-DE]
Introduced
Summary
Requires hospitals to create detailed discharge plans for pregnant patients. It also adds rural maternal training grants, a multi-center research initiative, and a public HHS maternal health dashboard to track outcomes and disparities.
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- Pregnant patients: Plans must be developed when a hospitalized pregnant person shows signs of labor and is expected to be discharged before delivery. Plans go in the medical record, must be discussed before discharge, and include a clinical justification, travel and transportation checks, a named backup facility, and information in the patient’s primary language.
- Hospitals and clinicians: Hospitals, including critical access and rural emergency hospitals, must follow these discharge standards beginning January 1, 2027. Each plan must be reviewed and approved by a registered nurse, social worker, or other qualified staff and be consistent with existing emergency care obligations.
- Rural providers and researchers: The bill creates rural maternal and obstetric care training demonstration grants with performance milestones starting in fiscal year 2027 and requires annual public reports with grant lists, training formats, provider counts, and patient-level outcome and disparity measures. It also establishes a multi-center implementation science initiative to evaluate training models and a publicly accessible HHS maternal health dashboard.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 3 benefits, 0 costs, 0 mixed.
Hospital discharge plans for pregnant patients
If enacted, hospitals that participate in Medicare would need a written discharge plan for any patient who is pregnant, showing labor signs, and is expected to go home before delivery. The plan would be put in the medical record and discussed with the patient or their representative before discharge. It would have a clinical reason for discharge, travel distance and time to the hospital, verified reliable transportation, a named secondary hospital for delivery, and a confirmation that a nurse, social worker, or other qualified person reviewed the plan. The information would have to be given in the patient’s primary language and the patient’s understanding confirmed. This would take effect January 1, 2027 and would not limit existing discharge or emergency care duties, including EMTALA.
Maternal health training research program
If enacted, the Department of Health and Human Services would set up a multi-center research initiative to test different maternal health training models for clinicians. The initiative would compare in-person, virtual, simulation, and cohort-based training and measure effects on provider behavior, patient outcomes, and maternal health disparities. HHS would also build and publish an interagency maternal health dashboard with outcome metrics from HHS agencies. The bill does not specify funding amounts or a start date for the program.
Rural maternal training grant changes
If enacted, HHS would require rural maternal and obstetric care training grantees to meet minimum performance milestones starting with grants for fiscal year 2027. Milestones must include measures such as the percent of all staff trained or receiving refresher training with grant support. HHS would also have to send a report to Congress and post it publicly by January 1, 2027 and every year after. The reports would list grant recipients, grant amounts, training formats, geographic coverage, number of providers trained, and patient-level metrics like clinical outcomes, patient experience, and racial disparities.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Blunt Rochester, Lisa [D-DE]
DE • D
Cosponsors
There are no cosponsors for this bill.
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
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