Relating to the use of technology in child abuse and neglect investigations

HB 5189 establishes a two-county pilot program requiring child protective services (CPS) workers in West Virginia to use mobile devices (like tablets) for conducting child abuse and neglect investigations starting October 2027. The bill mandates that devices must create real-time digital records, automatically upload data daily to a central system, work with existing software, and be used in at least 70% of cases during the pilot. It directly affects CPS workers in the two participating counties and requires the Department of Human Services to report annually on program metrics to the legislature. The pilot will run for five years, ending in 2032, with data used for system-wide quality improvement analysis.