Senate advances bill to create long-term care advisory council amid concerns of duplication with county commission

Senators on the Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted to recommend passage of Senate Bill 288, which would establish an advisory council on long-term care to gather data, engage stakeholders and make recommendations aimed at improving access to long-term care and speeding hospital discharges.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Ruth Ward, told the committee she and 13 colleagues brought the bill after constituents described long inpatient waits for non‑acute patients. “We know that one of the biggest challenges with access to inpatient bed capacity is that many beds are being taken up by non acute patients,” Ward said, citing a Foundation for Healthy Communities report that identified 46 patients statewide waiting for long‑term care and “hundred and 5 unnecessary extra days in a hospital.”

Supporters — including the New Hampshire Hospital Association, Dartmouth Health, the Commission on Aging and several provider groups — said the council would help untangle a multifaceted barriers-to-discharge problem that harms patients, ties up acute beds and creates unreimbursed costs for hospitals. Ben Bradley of the New Hampshire Hospital Association said the…