STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2404

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 3081

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Health and Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 3081 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE HAWAII PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to require hospitals to participate in a Department of Health electronic health surveillance system.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Health and Healthcare Association of Hawaii.

     According to the Centers for Disease Control, "syndromic surveillance" applies to surveillance using health-related data that precede diagnosis and signal a sufficient probability of a case or an outbreak to warrant further public health response.  Traditional disease surveillance protocols wait for a physician or laboratory diagnosis before alerting public health officials to a potential outbreak.  Waiting for a diagnosis can delay the onset of an investigation by several days during which a potential disease host can infect individuals in the public or within a healthcare facility.  The goal of a syndromic surveillance system is to detect an outbreak and stop the spread of illness without having to wait for a clinical diagnosis.

     This measure requires the Director of Health to develop a syndromic surveillance program with hospital emergency departments in order to detect and investigate public health threats that may result from: (1) an epidemic or infectious, communicable, or other disease; or (2) a terrorist incident using nuclear, biological, or chemical agents.

     The intent of this measure is to protect the public health and the safety of the people of Hawaii by providing early warning of potential disease outbreak in Hawaii.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Judiciary and Labor that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3081, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3081, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Health and Judiciary and Labor,

____________________________ BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair

____________________________ DAVID Y. IGE, Chair