Bill Text: HI SB666 | 2013 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: Task Force; Emergency Services Patient Advocate Program ($)
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 5-0)
Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2013-04-26 - Conference committee meeting to reconvene on 04-26-13 4:30PM in conference room 229. [SB666 Detail]
Download: Hawaii-2013-SB666-Amended.html
STAND. COM. REP. NO. 379
Honolulu, Hawaii
RE: S.B. No. 666
S.D. 1
Honorable Donna Mercado Kim
President of the Senate
Twenty-Seventh State Legislature
Regular Session of 2013
State of Hawaii
Madam:
Your Committees on Health and Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 666 entitled:
"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"
beg leave to report as follows:
The purpose and intent of this measure is to establish an emergency services patient advocate program to provide assistance to and advocate on behalf of patients receiving emergency medical care.
Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Community Alliance for Mental Health and two individuals. Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of Health and Kaiser Permanente Hawaii.
Your Committees find that sick and vulnerable patients and their family members can become overwhelmed during a medical emergency. Many patients are unaware of their rights regarding the treatment and care they receive from their emergency room physicians. Your Committees find it is commonplace that many patients or their family members may disagree with the diagnosis or treatment plan provided by their emergency room physician, but feel forced to accept the treatment plan because they are unaware of how to effectively exercise their right to secure appropriate and available emergency medical care.
Your Committees note the emotional and moving testimony of former state legislator Fred Rohlfing, whose wife of thirty years died after an emergency room physician missed her diagnosis and discharged Mrs. Rohlfing against Mr. Rohlfing's wishes. Your Committees find that it is necessary to establish an emergency services patient advocate program to provide assistance to and advocate on behalf of patients receiving emergency medical treatment. Your Committees further find, however, that a mandated, statewide patient advocate program would be extremely costly and is not feasible at present.
Your Committees have amended this measure by deleting all of the substantive sections of the Act relating to the emergency services patient advocate program except for the section:
(1) Directing the Department of Health to establish an emergency services patient advocate program, as the codification of the program may serve as a framework for future legislation to expand the program statewide; and
(2) Requiring the Department of Health to adopt rules related to the program.
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. 666, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 666, 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,
|
____________________________ CLAYTON HEE, Chair |
|
____________________________ JOSH GREEN, Chair |
|
|
|
|
