STAND. COM. REP. NO.  542

Honolulu, Hawaii

                , 2015

RE:   H.B. No. 1147

      H.D. 1

Honorable Joseph M. Souki

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Health, to which was referred H.B. No. 1147 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to establish a 24-hour, on-call, emergency services failsafe program to assist physicians and patients in obtaining the opinion of another physician on high-risk cases, in situations when consultation is warranted, and when a patient, a patient's family member, or hospital patient advocate disagrees with a diagnosis or treatment plan.  

A former state senator, former state representative, and an individual testified in support of this measure.  The Department of Health, The Queen's Health Systems, and Kaiser Permanente Hawaii commented on this measure.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1)  Making the emergency services failsafe program a two-year pilot program;

(2)  Authorizing the Department of Health to convene a committee to create a forum to facilitate the sharing of best practices and benchmarking data for patient advocacy in the emergency department setting;

(3)  Requesting the Director of Health to identify no more than two hospitals to participate in the pilot program; provided that at least one of the hospitals must be affiliated with the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation;

(4)  Requiring the Department of Health to submit reports to the Legislature on the implementation of the two-year pilot emergency services failsafe program and on any actions it has taken to convene the committee convened to develop a forum related to patient advocacy;

(5)  Repealing the pilot program on July 1, 2017;

(6)  Changing the effective date to July 1, 2050, to facilitate further discussion; and

(7)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for clarity, consistency, and style.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1147, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1147, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Finance.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Health,

____________________________

DELLA AU BELATTI, Chair