A mother sat on a hospital call, her voice breaking.

I am not a mother who doesn’t care about her child. But she needs help, and I don’t know what else to do.

This is what system strain sounds like. Her daughter, a minor child, had been stuck in an emergency department for days because no placement could be found. Each hour she remained there, her chances of psychiatric decomposition increased. She needed a safe, structured community or inpatient environment equipped to support her needs beyond the immediate crisis. The emergency department was never built for that purpose.

---

Helping Children in Crisis

I lead Maryland Information Network, the state-authorized administrator of the 211 system in Maryland, where every day we hear from parents desperate to find care for their children in crisis, and from emergency department staff carrying the weight of patients with no clear next step.

Every day, we see these moments unfold in real-time across the ecosystem. In this case, it’s pediatric overstays, but we also see it with food, housing, child care, and other essential needs. At Maryland Information Network, we’re building infrastructure so we can quickly deploy solutions that relieve worry for parents, administrative burdens for hospitals, and provide state leaders with the data they need to take the next step.

Coordinating health and human services

Here’s the complex reality. Families are in crisis. Hospital teams are doing everything possible within the limits of fragmented systems. State leaders are investing significant resources to address pediatric overstay and psychiatric ED boarding. While these investments are creating pathways for structural change and innovative solutions, we need to coordinate our efforts to make it easier to navigate Maryland’s health and human services system.

We’re bringing partners together from hospitals, local behavioral health organizations, and even the school system to bridge the gaps and reduce ED overstays and hospital readmissions. We developed 211 ConnectCare, a patient referral system that seamlessly integrates hospital care with community-based resources.

This platform enables hospital discharge teams to submit referrals quickly and securely, ensuring the right information reaches the right partners to act fast. It gives care teams confidence that they are not alone in the placement process. Just as importantly, it creates a centralized record of placement needs and referral trends.

For the first time, Maryland has a coordinated digital front door that not only connects hospitals, community providers, and state agencies to resolve ED boarding patient by patient, but also gives policymakers a statewide view of where the system is working, where it is breaking down, and how to strengthen it.

Hospitals across the state are already using ConnectCare to better coordinate placements for psychiatric patients at risk of extended ED boarding and pediatric patients facing hospital overstay.

This is more than a referral tool. It is transforming how Maryland responds to ED boarding, bridging day-to-day coordination with the data insights needed for long-term solutions.

This is the power of policy translated into action.

The power of the right investments into impact.

The power of coordinated care in upholding human dignity.

When we build coordinated infrastructure, we enable patients to move into care with dignity and speed. We give families confidence that their loved ones will not remain in limbo. We strengthen hospitals by restoring their capacity to provide emergency care.

To our state policymakers, agency leaders, and community partners, I say this:

Because of your investments and leadership, solutions like 211 ConnectCare are possible. Maryland Information Network remains committed to bridging data gaps to deliver insights and empower decisions that create real relief for hospitals and real dignity for patients and families.

---