Maryland Senate President Mike Miller’s recent announcement that he will step down from the leadership position he held for 33 years marks a seismic change for the chamber. Though Miller intends to remain a senator, his absence at the dais will be felt in Annapolis.

Recently the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) released a new Diabetes Action Plan that aims to create conditions conducive to better health and reduce the impact of diabetes on Marylanders. MDH understands the plan will require an “all in” effort from a wide variety of actors, including state and local policymakers, payers, employers, school boards and administrators, community groups and others.

A groundswell of support is forming at the state and national levels to make hospital billing more understandable and transparent for our patients. Feeding that push are nearly daily headlines about patients who received bills that exceeded their expectations, people who were confused after receiving two bills for what looked like the same service, and hospitals’ efforts, legitimate as they may be, to collect on unpaid debts.

To best position Maryland hospitals and health systems for the future, partnering with state and local agencies is key. To that end, MHA participates in a group Secretary of Health Robert Neall convenes to help ensure the Maryland Model reaches its aims of better care and better health.

Your hospitals compose the Maryland Hospital Association, and in turn, the association is the hospitals. Your needs, concerns and direction drive our work. And, thus MHA’s success is yours.

To best support your needs, MHA must constantly balance the demand to address current issues while anticipating opportunities and challenges to come. Last Thursday and Friday, MHA’s Executive Committee of the Board met to ponder the issues shaping health care in Maryland over the next decade.