STAND. COM. REP. NO. 3127

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2442

S.D. 2

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2022

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Judiciary, to which was referred S.B. No. 2442, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PHYSICIAN ASSISTANTS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to streamline the medical records review process for physician assistants by including the review of prescriptions for controlled substances issued by physician assistants.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawai‘i Medical Board, Hawai‘i Academy of Physician's Assistants, Kaiser Permanente Hawai‘i, and Hawai‘i Public Health Association. Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from one individual.

Your Committees find that the State has an unmet need for over seven hundred full time physicians across the State with neighbor islands facing the most severe shortages. Your committees find that in order to address the physician shortage, physician's assistants should be permitted to practice at the top of their training, education, experience, and licensure. Your Committees further find that requiring a supervising physician to review all medical records that contain written orders or prescriptions for controlled substances is unnecessarily burdensome. This measure streamlines the medical records review process for physician assistants by including review of prescriptions for controlled substances issued by physician assistants and helps to bring Hawai‘i physician assistants' scope of practice into alignment with national practices.

Your Committees have amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Judiciary that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2442, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2442, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Judiciary,

________________________________ KARL RHOADS, Chair

________________________________ ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair