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S 1515

Removes emergency medical services from the limit on real property tax levies by local governments

2025 Regular Session Introduced by Pat Fahy and 9 co-sponsors

Creates a real-time statewide Hospital Capacity Dashboard to share capacity data, balance loads, and boost surge response; governance shifts to a healthcare coalition.

SUBSTITUTED BY A2177A
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Bill Summary · S 1515

Summary — S.1515 (Commonwealth of Massachusetts)

Title: An Act relative to enhancing statewide hospital capacity coordination
Primary sponsor: Sen. William J. Driscoll, Jr.
Filed: January 17, 2025 (Senate Docket No. 2551)
Status highlights: Introduced/Read Apr 29, 2025; referred to committees; substituted by A2177A (6/12/2025); hearing scheduled 6/25/2025; reported favorably and referred to Health Care Financing (10/14/2025).

Main purpose

Create a real‑time, statewide Hospital Capacity Coordination Dashboard to improve situational awareness, resource allocation, and patient load‑balancing among hospitals across the Commonwealth during public‑health emergencies or other patient surges.

Key provisions

  • Requires the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) to develop a real‑time electronic Hospital Capacity Coordination Dashboard that, at minimum, gathers, reports, and facilitates data on hospital capacity, capability, and available beds statewide.
  • Directs DPH to collaborate with healthcare providers (clinical, emergency management, hospital operations expertise) and members of the legislature in design and development.
  • Authorizes inclusion of additional data points as deemed relevant to monitoring local, regional, and statewide capacity, situational awareness, and patient load balancing.
  • Assigns responsibility for staffing, funding and operational costs to DPH, the Executive Office of Technology Services, and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services — but funding is subject to future legislative appropriation.
  • Requires completion of the electronic tool within 1 year of the act’s effective date.
  • After completion (and issuance of any governance/use guidance), control and operational management of the Dashboard transfer to a broadly representative healthcare coalition; that coalition receives administrative control of the tool and its data.

Who would be affected

  • Hospitals and health systems (reporting capacity and receiving situational awareness)
  • State agencies (DPH, Executive Office of Technology Services, EOHS)
  • Healthcare coalitions and emergency response partners (operational managers)
  • Patients indirectly (through improved load‑balancing and surge response)

Implementation, timeline & funding

  • Mandated completion within one year of enactment.
  • Staffing and startup/operational costs to be provided by specified state agencies but require explicit legislative appropriation.
  • Governance shifts from DPH to a healthcare coalition after completion; governance/use documents are anticipated.

Potential impacts and considerations

  • Expected benefits: improved statewide situational awareness, faster patient transfers and load balancing, better allocation of scarce resources during surges.
  • Open issues include data privacy/security, reporting burdens on hospitals, interoperability with existing hospital systems, oversight of a non‑governmental coalition’s control of state health data, and certainty of appropriations to build and operate the tool.

Compiled from official sources — confirm details with the bill’s official record.

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