The bill requires DHS to perform various duties, in consultation with other state agencies as appropriate, such as: (1) facilitate local team development; (2) identify training needs and make available training resources; (3) provide technical assistance and support; (4) in the absence of a local team or upon request, assign review of deaths to a state fatality review team, if established; (5) educate the public on causes and recommendations for prevention of reviewable deaths; and (6) provide information to the legislature, state agencies, and local communities on the need for modifications to law, policy, or practice. The bill allows DHS to contract with an entity to perform any of its duties under the bill.

Under the bill, DHS must create and make available to fatality review teams a confidentiality agreement for use by team members to ensure confidentiality consistent with the bill’s provisions. The bill requires DHS to promulgate administrative rules to develop and implement a standardized form for review of suicide deaths, and allows DHS to promulgate rules to develop and implement standardized forms for other types of reviewable deaths. The bill further grants general rule-making authority to DHS to implement the bill’s provisions.

Under the bill, a fatality review team has the purpose of gathering information about reviewable deaths to examine risk factors and understand how deaths may be prevented, through identifying recommendations for cross-sector, system-level policy and practice changes, and promoting cooperation and coordination among the agencies involved in understanding causes of reviewable deaths or in providing services to surviving family members.

If established, each fatality review team must: (1) establish and implement team protocols; (2) collect and maintain data; (3) create strategies and track implementation of prevention recommendations; and (4) evaluate the team’s process, interagency collaboration, and implementation of recommendations. The bill requires teams to assign, as appropriate for a specific review, a team member to complete any standardized form developed by DHS, and to enter data regarding each reviewable death into any secure database designated by DHS or its contracted entity.

Information and records provided to or created by a fatality review team are confidential, subject to limited exceptions provided under the bill, and are not subject to Wisconsin’s public records laws. The bill requires team members, and other individuals invited to attend a team meeting, to sign a confidentiality agreement before participating in or attending a fatality review team meeting. The bill prohibits team members, persons in attendance at team meetings, and others providing records to teams from testifying in any civil or criminal action as to the information specifically obtained through participation in the team’s meeting.

The bill authorizes disclosure of information if such disclosure serves a team’s purpose and certain other conditions are met, such as the information does not allow for identification of individuals and does not contain conclusory information attributing fault. The bill further specifies that a team’s information and records are not subject to discovery or subpoena, or admissible as evidence, in a civil or criminal action, unless obtained independently from a team’s review. The bill also provides that a person participating in a fatality review team is immune from civil or criminal liability for any good faith act or omission in connection with providing information or recommendations.

AB188,,6648.396 (1) Law enforcement officers’ records of children shall be kept separate from records of adults. Law enforcement officers’ records of the adult expectant mothers of unborn children shall be kept separate from records of other adults. Law enforcement officers’ records of children and the adult expectant mothers of unborn children shall not be open to inspection or their contents disclosed except under sub. (1b), (1d), (5), or (6) or s. 48.293 or, 250.22, or 938.396 (2m) (c) 1p. or by order of the court. This subsection does not apply to the representatives of newspapers or other reporters of news who wish to obtain information for the purpose of reporting news without revealing the identity of the child or adult expectant mother involved, to the confidential exchange of information between the police and officials of the public or private school attended by the child or other law enforcement or social welfare agencies, or to children 10 years of age or older who are subject to the jurisdiction of the court of criminal jurisdiction. A public school official who obtains information under this subsection shall keep the information confidential as required under s. 118.125, and a private school official who obtains information under this subsection shall keep the information confidential in the same manner as is required of a public school official under s. 118.125. This subsection does not apply to the confidential exchange of information between the police and officials of the tribal school attended by the child if the police determine that enforceable protections are provided by a tribal school policy or tribal law that requires tribal school officials to keep the information confidential in a manner at least as stringent as is required of a public school official under s. 118.125. A law enforcement agency that obtains information under this subsection shall keep the information confidential as required under this subsection and s. 938.396 (1) (a). A social welfare agency that obtains information under this subsection shall keep the information confidential as required under ss. 48.78 and 938.78.