HCR42

WHEREAS, Hawaii's continued prosperity and ability to preserve its quality of life and to meet the new challenges of the global economy depends on reducing dependence on land as the chief driver of economic development; and

WHEREAS, Hawaii's economic development policy should shift toward developing its citizens to meet these new global economic challenges through innovation; and

WHEREAS, Hawaii's people are underused and increasing capacity in worker's innovation will enable Hawaii to compete in a global economy; and

WHEREAS, innovation links together Hawaii's people, knowledge, and assets to transform ideas, insights, and invention into new processes, products, and services, which will result in a demand for more jobs; and

WHEREAS, innovation applies to both existing and new industries and provides measurable results such as the opening of a new market, adoption of a new technology, or an improvement to a business organization or process; and

WHEREAS, innovation increases Hawaii's standard of living through a steady growth in productivity, which relies on applying technology in ways to lower costs or increase revenues by introducing more valuable products and services; and

WHEREAS, in 2006, 28,018 work-related injuries and 1,094,172 days of compensation loss were reported in Hawaii, resulting in $250,799,000 in compensation costs; and

WHEREAS, innovative technology can be used to assist with physical injuries; and

WHEREAS, innovative technology is available to objectively profile soft-tissue injury medical evidence to:

(1) Quantify the percentage of improvement and deficit of each injury motion measured by each medical provider for each injury visit during the life of the workers' compensation claim;

(2) Identify benchmarks to determine when the claimant can safely return to work;

(3) Identify the point of maximum medial improvement; and

(4) Identify possible fraudulent behaviors;

and

WHEREAS, the profile may become part of the work file to be used to justify objective-based actions for settlement, closure, or continuation of services; and

WHEREAS, a pilot project to audit these claims can produce valuable information on soft-tissue injury workers' compensation cases; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-fourth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2008, the Senate concurring, that the Legislature requests the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DLIR) to conduct a pilot project to audit 100 workers' compensation soft-tissue injury cases; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that DLIR work together with Claim Check, the Hawaii-based small business that invented the innovative Claim Alert technology to produce an eProfile; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Claim Check is requested to assist DLIR in this pilot project; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that DLIR may request the assistance of other departments as necessary for this pilot project; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that DLIR is requested to submit a report to the Legislature on its findings and recommendations no later than 20 days prior to the convening of the Regular Session of 2009; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Director of Labor and the Chairperson of Claim Check.

	OFFERED BY:	_____________________________
		BY REQUEST

Report Title:

Workers' Compensation Innovation Audit Pilot Project; DLIR

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.C.R. NO.	42
TWENTY-FOURTH LEGISLATURE, 2008
STATE OF HAWAII