The 2023 legislative session successfully concluded Monday with numerous wins for hospitals and health care in our state.
Early advocacy, outreach, and education to and with lawmakers ensured all the hospital field priority bills to strengthen the hospital workforce passed overwhelmingly. That includes legislation to reform Maryland’s Board of Nursing, modernize physician credentialing, and invest in loan repayment.
Together, with your hospital government affairs leads, we were able to pass several other pieces of legislation like investments in the behavioral health system of care and protections for telehealth flexibilities.
We spent just as much time educating and engaging on issues that would have been burdensome to hospitals. More on all of these successes can be found in MHA’s Sine Die report.
While much progress was made, our work is not done.
We now shift to what will be the busiest interim in recent years. There are a number of collaboratives, partnerships, and committees we will work on to move policy and guide lawmakers.
You will hear more about these issues in the coming months, including emergency department wait times and OR space for pediatric dental procedures.
It is our privilege to advocate on your behalf. We are proud to provide staunch support for hospitals and look forward to making more progress over the interim.