On March 1, 2024, Associate Policy Director Sarah Sample testified before the Senate Finance Committee in support of SB 825 – Health Facilities – Delegation of Inspection Authority – Related Institutions and Nursing Homes. This bill allows local governments to oversee and maintain standards for nursing homes, hospitals, and residential inpatient and outpatient treatment centers.
Community members can access health care services through a range of providers across Maryland. It is important that required standards and procedures are adhered to with extreme vigilance in these facilities. Some jurisdictions have a considerable number of providers, and some have just a handful. Regardless, they all require accountability – but those safeguards are only effective when they are properly enforced.
The provisions of this bill are in the spirit of state and local partnership. With staffing shortages and tenuous vacancy rates, the state agencies are not always able to keep up with the volume of entities that need to be evaluated. The ability for local agencies to be granted the authority to step in and support those enforcement efforts will guarantee that the services residents are receiving in any jurisdiction are safe.
SB 825’s cross-file, HB 1475, was heard on March 13, 2024 in the House Health and Government Operations Committee. Sarah Sample testified in support of this bill.
SB 825 was heard in the opposite chamber, the House Health and Government Operations Committee, on March 28. MACo submitted testimony in support.
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