STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2083

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2537

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Health and Human Services and Public Housing, to which was referred S.B. No. 2537 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO KIDNEY DISEASE,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to provide for the development and implementation of a modified home care and community health demonstration project for chronic kidney disease patients living in rural areas of the State.

     Specifically, this measure appropriates $1,700,000 as a grant-in-aid to the St. Francis Healthcare System to develop and implement the modified home care and community health demonstration project that addresses health care access and needs of patients with chronic kidney disease.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from St. Francis Healthcare Foundation of Hawaii, the National Kidney Foundation, and the Policy Advisory Board for Elder Affairs.

     Your Committees find that the St. Francis Healthcare System is developing the "Stay Healthy at Home" program, a four-year demonstration project, to meet the needs of our expanding older adult population and patients of chronic diseases.  Chronic kidney disease affects more than twenty per cent of our State's population, with another twenty per cent predisposed to contract the disease in the near future.

     Your Committees further find that this measure will support the advancement of at-home and community health care for patients suffering from chronic kidney disease, enabling them to remain at home as long as possible.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Human Services and Public Housing that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2537 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Health and Human Services and Public Housing,

____________________________ SUZANNE CHUN OAKLAND, Chair

____________________________ DAVID Y. IGE, Chair