In this subtitle the following words have the meanings indicated. “Cultural and linguistic competency” means cultural and linguistic abilities that can be incorporated into therapeutic and medical evaluation and treatment, including: Direct communication in the patient’s primary language; Understanding and applying the roles that culture, ethnicity, and race play in diagnosis, treatment, and clinical care; and Awareness of how the attitudes, values, and beliefs of health care providers and patients influence and impact professional and patient relations. “Health care professional” includes a physician, nurse, dentist, social worker, psychologist, pharmacist, health educator, or other allied health professional. “Implicit bias” means a bias in judgment that results from subtle cognitive processes, including the following prejudices and stereotypes that often operate at a level below conscious awareness and without intentional control: Prejudicial negative feelings or beliefs about a group that an individual holds without being aware of the feelings or beliefs; and Unconscious attributions of particular qualities to a member of a specific social group that are influenced by experience and based on learned associations between various qualities and social categories, including race and gender. “Program” means the Cultural and Linguistic Health Care Professional Competency Program. “Structural racism” means the totality of ways in which societies foster racial discrimination by mutually reinforcing systems of housing, education, employment, earnings, benefits, credit, media, health care, and criminal justice.

There is a Cultural and Linguistic Health Care Professional Competency Program. The purpose of the Program is to: Provide for a voluntary program in which educational classes are offered to health care professionals to teach health care professionals: Methods to improve the health care professionals’ cultural and linguistic competency to communicate with non–English speaking patients and patients from other cultures who are English speaking; Cultural beliefs and practices that may impact patient health care practices and allow health care professionals to incorporate the knowledge of the beliefs and practices in the diagnosis and treatment of patients; and Methods to enable health care professionals to increase the health literacy of their patients to improve the patient’s ability to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services to make appropriate health care decisions; Establish and provide an evidence–based implicit bias training program for health care professionals involved in the perinatal care of patients under § 20–1305 of this subtitle; and Identify and approve implicit bias and structural racism training programs for health occupation licensure and certification under § 1–225 of the Health Occupations Article.

The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, the State Medical Society, the Maryland Nurses Association, the Maryland State Dental Association, the National Association of Social Workers – Maryland Chapter, the Maryland Clinical Social Work Coalition, the Maryland Psychological Association, the Maryland Pharmacists Association, or any other health professional association or public health entity in the State is encouraged to identify training programs, or, if feasible, to develop or collaborate in the development of training programs, that: Address ethnic language or racial groups of interest to the health care professional members; Are based on the established knowledge of health care professionals serving target populations; Are developed in collaboration with the Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities; and Include standards that identify the degree of competency for participants to qualify for completion of a program.

The Maryland Department of Health shall develop a method through which the appropriate professional licensing board recognizes the training received by health care professionals under this subtitle, either through continuing education credits or otherwise. The Program shall provide a certificate of training completion for any individual who completes the training established under § 20–1305 of this subtitle, and to a facility on request.

In this section the following words have the meanings indicated. “Perinatal care” means the provision of care during pregnancy, labor, delivery, and postpartum and neonatal periods. “Perinatal care facility” includes: A hospital, as defined in § 19–301 of this article, that provides perinatal care; and A freestanding birthing center, as defined in § 19–3B–01 of this article. On or before January 1, 2021, the Program shall establish an evidence–based implicit bias training program for all health care professionals involved in the perinatal care of patients in a perinatal care facility. The Program shall establish the implicit bias program required under paragraph (1) of this subsection using best practices in implicit bias training. The implicit bias program required under paragraph (1) of this subsection may include best practices used in other states. On or before January 1, 2022, and once every 2 years thereafter or more frequently, as determined by the perinatal care facility, a health care professional who is an employee of, and involved in the perinatal care of patients at, a perinatal care facility shall complete the training established under subsection (b) of this section. The Program shall offer the training established under subsection (b) of this section to any health care professional involved in perinatal care of patients at a perinatal care facility who is not required to complete the training under subsection (c) of this section because the health care professional is not an employee of a perinatal care facility.

The Program shall, in coordination with the Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities, identify and approve implicit bias and structural racism training programs that an individual may complete to satisfy the requirements of § 1–225 of the Health Occupations Article. The Program may approve only implicit bias and structural racism training programs under paragraph (1) of this subsection that are recognized by a health occupations board established under the Health Occupations Article or accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education or the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education. The Program shall provide a list of training programs approved under subsection (a) of this section on request.