STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2436

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2200

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2022

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 2200 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO TUBERCULOSIS SCREENING,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to require the Department of Health to amend its administrative rules regarding tuberculosis screening requirements for direct support workers in the Department's Developmental Disabilities Division.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from Full Life Hawaii and one individual. Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of Health. Your Committees received comments on this measure from the State Council on Developmental Disabilities.

Your Committees find that direct support workers who work in assisted living facilities, nursing facilities, or other health care facilities are required to undergo a two-step tuberculosis screening, which involves an under-skin injection test, blood draw, or chest x-ray. Other direct support workers, such as childcare workers, foster care workers, and school personnel undergo a less invasive tuberculosis screening, which involves screening for symptoms only. Despite not working in a health care facility, direct support workers who provide Medicaid-sponsored in-home services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities must undergo the more stringent two-step tuberculosis screening. This measure directs the Department of Health to classify those direct support workers in the Medicaid home and community-based waiver program as workers who only require a tuberculosis symptom screening.

Your Committees have amended this measure by inserting an effective date of January 1, 2050, to encourage further discussion.

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. 2200, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2200, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Judiciary.

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

________________________________ JOY A. SAN BUENAVENTURA, Chair

________________________________ JARRETT KEOHOKALOLE, Chair