(1) Subject to appropriation, the department shall establish and make available to the public a mental health telephone access line known as the Michigan crisis and access line.

    (2) The department shall contract for the design, operation, and maintenance of the access line. The access line must be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A contractor operating or maintaining the access line shall do all of the following:

    (a) Have the ability to access information related to the availability of services, including near real-time access to any registry of available inpatient psychiatric beds, crisis residential beds, and substance use disorder beds.

    (b) Refer and connect individuals requiring mental health or substance use disorder services to mental health professionals, including, but not limited to, community mental health services programs and prepaid inpatient health plans, using telecommunications and digital communications methods commonly in use, such as a telephone call, text message, electronic mail, and internet chat.

    (c) Implement practices to comply with all applicable laws respecting individual and patient privacy.

    (d) Implement practices to ensure the security of the data collected, in line with industry best practices and in compliance with all applicable laws.

    (e) Notwithstanding subdivisions (c) and (d), collect data and utilize data analytics to track the success of the access line’s operations and identify trends in service needs and outcomes.

    (f) Develop and utilize a customer relationship management infrastructure for the access line to track, monitor, assign, follow up, and report on access line operations. This customer relationship management infrastructure must provide appropriate community and provider access.

    (g) Require contractors maintaining the access line to inform individuals seeking behavioral health care that bed registry data may not be accurate and bed availability is not guaranteed.

    (3) The department of licensing and regulatory affairs shall provide behavioral health provider licensure data to the department. The department may use this data and work with the contractor described in subsection (2) to leverage existing databases and other sources of information identifying mental health professionals providing mental health services and providers of substance use disorder treatment and rehabilitation services and to utilize the most current provider information available.

    (4) The department has operational oversight for, including access to and utilization of, the customer relationship management infrastructure. Community mental health services programs and prepaid inpatient health plans may access the customer relationship management infrastructure.

    (5) The access line must be able to support calls relating to services and supports described in section 206.

    (6) An individual operating or maintaining the access line under contract with the department has the same immunity provided for a governmental employee under section 7 of 1964 PA 170, MCL 691.1407.

    (7) A state-operated registry of available inpatient psychiatric beds, crisis residential beds, or substance use disorder beds must report all data collected for that registry to the department or the entity operating or maintaining the access line under contract with the department.

    (8) A health facility, health professional, or contractor shall not be held civilly or criminally liable for inaccurate registry data that is shared under this section.