§ 13-302

It is hereby found and determined that:

(1) The purposes of the medical system are to provide medical care of the type unique to University medical facilities for the citizens of the State and region and, in accomplishing this objective, to provide a clinical context for education and research conducted by the faculty of the University;

(2) The purposes extend to all citizens of the State, particularly regarding health care needs which only an academic medical institution can adequately meet such as extensive tertiary care, major shock trauma treatment, and sophisticated surgical techniques;

(3) The purposes also include rendering comprehensive health care to the community naturally served by University Hospital to assure its availability to citizens of that community;

(4) These purposes separately and collectively serve the highest public interest and are essential to the public health and welfare, but must be realized in the most efficient manner and at the lowest cost practicable and consistent with these purposes;

(5) It has proven unnecessarily costly and administratively cumbersome for the University to finance, manage, and carry out the patient care activities of an academic institution within the existing framework of a State agency, since many applicable laws, management structures, and procedures were developed to implement types of governmental functions which differ from the operations of a major patient care facility in an environment of State and federal regulation; such patient care operations are more efficiently served by contemporary legal, management, and procedural structures utilized by similarly situated, private entities throughout the nation;

(6) It is fiscally desirable for the State of Maryland to separate the operations, revenues, and obligations of the medical system from the State to the end that, to the maximum extent practicable, the medical system be a self–supporting entity to which the State may make grants or with which the State may contract as may be deemed appropriate from time to time; this separation will segregate patient care costs and revenues from unrelated State activities;

(7) The interests of the citizens of the State, the region, and the community naturally served by University Hospital will be best met by granting and transferring State assets and liabilities related to the medical system to a private, nonprofit, nonstock corporation in order to create a separate legal and organizational structure for the medical system to provide independence and flexibility of management and funding, while assuring a compatible and mutually beneficial relationship with the University;

(8) In order to maintain the highest quality patient care with the maximum efficiency practicable, the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center will be part of the medical system and will be governed by the Board of Directors; and

(9) It is the intent of the General Assembly that:

(i) Employees of the Medical System Corporation and any subsidiary of the Medical System Corporation who are not medical system University personnel enjoy the rights and protections associated with full freedom of association and collective bargaining afforded to similarly situated citizens of the State; and

(ii) Each subsidiary established by the Medical System Corporation under § 13–303(k) of this subtitle, including a subsidiary established for the purpose of operating all or a part of the University of Maryland Medical Center, falls within the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board, and the employees of the subsidiary are subject to the benefits and protections of the National Labor Relations Act.