What Is the Hospital Association of Pennsylvania (HAP)?

HAP — The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania — is a statewide membership services organization that represents Pennsylvania's hospitals and health systems. It works to help its members deliver safe, efficient, quality health care to the patients and communities they serve. If you're trying to understand who speaks for Pennsylvania hospitals on policy, workforce, and access-to-care issues, HAP is that organization.

Who HAP represents

HAP is a membership organization, meaning its work is built around the hospitals and health systems that join it rather than around individual patients or clinicians. Its stated purpose is to support those members in delivering care to their communities.

That structure shapes everything HAP does: its advocacy positions, educational programming, and news coverage all reflect the interests and operating realities of Pennsylvania hospitals and health systems.

What HAP actually does

HAP's work falls into three broad roles:

• Advocacy — representing hospitals and health systems before state and federal policymakers on the issues that affect their ability to operate and deliver care.
• Education — running programming and events for members, listed on its site under sections like "Upcoming HAP Education."
• Member services and information — publishing news, analysis, and updates through channels such as "The Latest" and "Daily News."

Current advocacy focus

HAP's public messaging centers on the financial and operational pressures facing Pennsylvania hospitals. Its site leads with the warning that more hospital closures are likely without increased support — a signal that reimbursement and funding levels are a central advocacy concern.

Its 2025–2026 state and federal access agenda and its "Current Advocacy Focus" section frame the priorities. One of the clearest is health care workforce: HAP states that patients' access to care depends on a robust health care workforce, and that staffing shortages remain a top challenge across the entire health care sector, both statewide and nationally.

So the through-line connecting HAP's priorities is straightforward — closures, workforce shortages, and access to care are treated as linked problems. If hospitals can't staff or fund their operations, patient access suffers.

How HAP connects to patients and communities

HAP's stated aim is to help members deliver safe, efficient, quality care to the patients and communities they serve. In practice, that means HAP's work on workforce and funding is framed as ultimately serving patient access — not as an internal industry matter. When HAP warns about closures or staffing gaps, the argument it makes is that these translate into reduced access for the communities hospitals serve.

Finding HAP news, events, and resources

Everything above is available directly at haponline.org. The site organizes it into recognizable sections:

If you're researching Pennsylvania hospital policy, tracking closures or workforce issues, or looking for HAP-hosted education, those sections are the starting points. Note that HAP is a membership organization — some services and programming are directed at its hospital and health system members, so check individual event or resource pages for who they're intended for.