N.M. Code R. § 7.4.8.12 – Data Collection

A. Duty to report: A health care provider, the office of the state medical investigator, and BVRHS shall notify the operational staff of any incident of maternal mortality within three months of the incident. A report made to BVRHS made within these timelines will be sufficient to satisfy this requirement.
B. Authority to collect information: Except as otherwise restricted or prohibited by state or federal statute or regulation, designated operational staff may access medical records and other information relating to an incident of maternal mortality at any time within five years of the date of the incident.
C. Information gathering: Regarding any incident of maternal mortality involving a New Mexico resident, information including reports, records and data files shall be provided upon request to the designated operational staff from health care providers, law enforcement agencies, BVRHS, and the office of the state medical investigator. The designated operational staff may also request information from other entities with relevant information to a maternal mortality case review. Any committee member engaged in case review may request that designated operational staff initiate such a request for information from other entities.
D. Information collection process: Information and records requests will be conducted in a confidential manner.
E. Collection of information by interview: Individuals who are operational staff of the department, may, with appropriate training, conduct interviews with a deceased person’s family, care providers, and other relevant persons. These interviews shall be conducted according to an established protocol with the consent of the interviewee.
F. Case abstraction process: Information and records obtained through a formal request initiated by operational staff will be provided to an abstractor who is assigned to develop a case summary. An abstractor enters information directly into the MMRIA database. It is the responsibility of the abstractor to employ training, experience, and abstracting tools endorsed or provided by the department or CDC in order to create a comprehensive, accurate summary of the events of a person’s life leading up to and including their death. This process must include tools that have been developed to facilitate the identification of racism, discrimination, and interpersonal and structural bias in health care or life course events that may have been contributing factors to the death. An abstractor may consult the co-chairs or other operational staff as needed to confirm interpretations of data and the relevance of details for inclusion in a case summary.
G. Identification of race and ethnicity of the deceased: Race and ethnicity of the deceased, as identified in available records, are noted in otherwise de-identified case summaries in order to allow the committee to consider factors such as the role of systemic racism and inequities related to pregnancy-associated deaths.
[7.4.8.12 - N, NMAC, 11/08/2022]