AHA Letter of Support for the Mapping America's Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, or MAPS, Act of 2023

August 4, 2023

Dear Chairman Peters and Senators Lankford and Braun:

On behalf of our nearly 5,000 member hospitals, health systems and other health care organizations, our clinician partners — including more than 270,000 affiliated physicians, 2 million nurses and other caregivers — and the 43,000 health care leaders who belong to our professional membership groups, the American Hospital Association (AHA) writes to express support for the Mapping America’s Pharmaceutical Supply (MAPS) Act (S. 2364).

Hospitals and health systems share concern about chronic and increasing drug shortages that have serious consequences for patient safety, quality of care and access to therapies. Addressing drug shortages is complex and costly to hospitals and health systems in terms of staff time and other resources required to manage the shortages. This legislation represents an important step in furthering efforts to address these challenges and secure the future of pharmaceutical access for patients.

A critical step in protecting America’s drug supply chain is understanding its vulnerabilities from the beginning of production to the moment a drug is administered to a patient. The MAPS Act creates a plan for the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Defense to map the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain. The act also includes use of data analytics to identify and predict supply chain vulnerabilities and other national security threats. With the information collected and analyzed through the MAPS Act, it will be possible begin addressing weaknesses in the pharmaceutical supply chain.

A strong and reliable pharmaceutical supply chain is a critical component to delivering safe, effective, high-quality care to patients. It has become increasingly clear that our national pharmaceutical supply chain is fragile, and that fragility poses significant risk to the patients and communities served by America’s hospitals and health systems. Thank you for your leadership in protecting patients through the MAPS Act. We look forward to working with you to address issues in the pharmaceutical supply chain.

Sincerely,

/s/

Lisa Kidder Hrobsky
Senior Vice President, Advocacy and Political Affairs