2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-FOUR - Health and Sanitation (§§ 1 — 15010) › PART I - Hospitals, Institutions, And Health Programs (§§ 1 — 343k) › Chapter 20A - Medical Services Administration (§§ 342 — 342r) › § 342n-1 - Integration of administrative functions

The integration of the technical and management services common to the Commonwealth institutions that constitute the Medical Center shall be public policy of the Administration. To such ends:
(a) Administrative consolidation. —
(1) Within the year following the effective date of this section, the Secretary of Health and the Executive Director of the Administration, after consulting the Board, shall submit to the Governor and to the Legislature of Puerto Rico a reorganization plan for the integration, as far as feasible and functionally effective, of technical and management services common to the Commonwealth hospitals that constitute the Puerto Rico Medical Center.
(2) The services to be consolidated shall include, but without it being understood as a limitation:
(A) Auditing
(B) Planning
(C) Economic studies
(D) Administrative services
(E) Procurement
(F) Maintenance
(G) Legal counsel and services
(H) Personnel
(I) Information processing computer systems
(J) Other whose consolidation is feasible
(3) The internal reorganization plan shall furthermore include the proper recommendations for the possible transfer, relocation, fusion or elimination of programs and operating functions within ASEM and the component institutions.
(4) Pursuant to the determinations made through this process, the Secretary of Health shall include with the reorganization plan the proposals for those bills of law and budgetary petitions that would give continuity to the plan.
(5) The reorganization plan shall become effective forty-five (45) days after being submitted should no action to amend or reject the same be taken by the Legislature.
(b) Consolidation of the personnel area. — The Secretary of Health and the Executive Director of ASEM, should they understand it to be feasible and functionally effective, may integrate the functions of the various personnel offices of ever component. If it is understood that this is necessary, within the one hundred and eighty (180) days following the approval of the reorganization plan, the Secretary shall approve a classification and compensation master plan and personnel regulations to apply to the components integrated. For the final approval of the master plan and the regulations, or amendments to these, the Secretary must have the approval of the Office of Management and Budget so as to ensure their fiscal feasibility.
(c) Conditions. —
(1) The Reorganization proposed shall set forth the functional economies and the operating efficiency of the units that make up the Medical Center.
(2) No integration of functions shall be made in detriment to the operating autonomy or the juridical personality of any of the component institutions.
(3) No provisions of this chapter shall be understood to modify, alter or invalidate any agreement, claim or contract that the officials or employees responsible for the entities subject to the reorganization plan have executed and are in force when the same is made effective. Any claim presented by or against said officials or employees and whose resolution is pending when the plan becomes effective.
(4) All regulations that govern the operation of the entities subject to the reorganization plan and that are in force when the latter becomes effective, shall continue in effect until they are altered, modified, amended, repealed or substituted.
(5) All career employees of the agencies affected by this plan are guaranteed their employment, rights, privileges and their respective status in relation to any pension or retirement system or savings and loan fund to which they were subscribed when the plan becomes effective.
(d) Progress report. — Within the term of twelve (12) months as of the effective date of the reorganization plan, the Secretary shall submit to both Legislative Bodies a report on its implementation. The report shall include a breakdown of the measures established to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the organisms that constitute the entity and specifically detail the mechanisms adopted or to be adopte[d].
History —June 22, 1978, No. 66, p. 203, added § 15-A on Sept. 7, 2005, No. 112, § 2.