5/01/2019
The Texas Budget, also known as HB1, is in conference where the two budgets approved by the Senate and the House will come together into one appropriations bill that will fund our state for the next two years.
There are many great things in the budget, but today we are highlighting one, an exceptional item request for $7 million that would support the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) to implement maternal safety initiatives statewide.
DSHS has teamed up with the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) and the Texas Hospital Association (THA) to create the TexasAIM. This Initiative will help 207 hospitals and clinics, many in rural communities, carry out maternal safety projects to end preventable maternal death and severe maternal morbidity related to obstetric hemorrhage, severe hypertension and opioid addiction. AIM is a program used by hospitals and communities across the country to implement best practices in care. They do this through “safety bundles”, collections of expert-developed best-practices for care that can be shared with hospitals and providers who may not always have the funding or capacity to bring that knowledge into their communities in a timely fashion.
Investing in women’s healthcare today is crucial given the Texas maternal health landscape. TexasAIM will help Texas keep moms and babies healthy and is supported by the recommendations released by the Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force. We applaud the inclusion of funding for the TexasAIM bundles in both versions of the budget and hope you will join us in calling and writing members of the Budget Conference committee to ask them to keep funding for the exceptional item request for $7 million to TexasAIM in the budget.
2019 Budget conferees to contact:
Senator Jane Nelson, Chairwoman
Representative John Zerwas, Chairman
Senator Joan Huffman
Representative Greg Bonnen
Senator Lois Kolkhorst
Representative Sarah Davis
Representative Oscar Longoria
Senator Larry Taylor
Representative Armando Walle
As always, please share this information with your friends and colleagues and THANK YOU for helping to raise voices and increase services for women and girls across Texas!