STAND. COM. REP. NO. 153

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 818

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fifth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2009

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 818 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to provide the public with greater access to information on the quality and conditions of care facilities in Hawaii.

     This measure attempts to accomplish this goal by requiring the Department of Health and the Department of Human Services to make available to the public, free of charge, information collected from the departments' inspections of care facilities on each department's website.  In addition, the measure provides for an appropriation to the Department of Health and the Department of Human Services for anticipated costs of the implementation of the notice requirement.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the State Council on Developmental Disabilities, the State Long Term Care Ombudsman, the Hawaii Alliance for Retired Americans, the Policy Advisory Board for Elder Affairs, the Kokua Council, and one private individual.

     Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of Health and the Department of Human Services. 

     Copies of written testimony are available for review on the Legislature's website.

     Your Committees find that this measure will increase transparency of care facility operation in the State and enable individuals in need of the services of a care facility to know which facilities meet minimum established standards and which facilities exceed those standards.

     Your Committees further find that inspection reports are currently required by the State and that posting the results of those reports on the departments' established website does not warrant an appropriation.

     Accordingly, your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  Requiring the Department of Health and the Department of Human Services to begin to post the inspection reports of care facilities on their respective websites by January 1, 2011 in order to allow time for the departments to establish procedures;

     (2)  Removing the appropriation provisions; and

     (3)  Changing the effective date to "upon approval".

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Human Services that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 818, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 818, 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 Human Services,

____________________________ SUZANNE CHUN OAKLAND, Chair

____________________________ DAVID Y. IGE, Chair