The Patient-Worker Collaborative is a new coalition of patients and their family members, healthcare workers, and community partners working to pass the Safe Staffing Act of 2025 in the Maryland General Assembly. Collectively, our coalition represents over 1 million Marylanders who are concerned about and affected by the hospital short staffing crisis. This legislation has broad support from patients, physicians of MedChi, emergency responders of the Black Chief Officers Committee, NAACP, Marylanders for Patient Rights, 1199SEIU, Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility, and all the organizations listed below.

Many Maryland hospitals face critical staffing shortages, leading to high staff turnover and burnout, longer emergency room wait times, and reduced quality of care. Research shows that staffing challenges cause not only emergency room wait but also delay in care leading to poor outcomes. The Safe Staffing Act establishes staffing committees in each hospital that bring the knowledge and experience of frontline health care workers to bear on staffing challenges and patient care conditions.

Maryland patients need the Patient Safety Act to address the staffing crisis. It is collaborative, flexible, and timely!

Collaborative: Joint labor and management committees have successfully addressed issues such as safe lifting and workplace violence. This approach now needs to be applied to ensure safe staffing with workers and patients at the table.

Flexible: The staffing plans can be amended at any time and can be adapted to the unique needs of each hospital.

Timely: The Patient Safety Act will help hospitals meet the quality metrics for the new AHEAD model.