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Safe Staffing Act hearing exposes split between hospital groups and workers over composition and flexibility of staffing committees
Summary
House Bill 905 would require hospitals to create clinical staffing committees with significant direct‑care worker representation, publish staffing plans and report staffing data; labor and patient‑advocacy groups backed the bill, hospitals and nursing leadership warned it could reduce flexibility and be impractical to update in real time.
Delegate Jennifer White Holland presented House Bill 9 0 5, the Safe Staffing Act of 2025, to the Health and Government Operations Committee. The bill would require Maryland hospitals to create clinical staffing committees composed in part of direct-care workers and a patient advocate, develop public staffing plans and collect data to inform staffing decisions.
White Holland said the measure is intended to address high vacancy rates in nursing and long emergency department wait times. She cited the Maryland Health Care Workforce Report showing 1 in 4 hospital nursing positions vacant and said 62 percent of nurses report considering leaving the profession; she argued a staffing committee process would better include frontline workers in…
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