STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2422

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2317

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 2317 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

 

     (1)  Establish the Hawaii maternal mortality review panel within the Department of Health to conduct a comprehensive review of maternal deaths that have occurred in the State; and

 

     (2)  Make an appropriation for the Department of Health to implement and operate the Hawaii maternal mortality review panel.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Hawaii Medical Association, Hawaii Public Health Association, Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest and Hawaii, Hawaii State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Health.

 

     Your Committee finds that Hawaii is one of only thirteen states without a multi-disciplinary professional panel to review pregnancy-related deaths.  Comprehensive multidisciplinary reviews of maternal deaths are needed to understand risk factors for and prevent the deaths of mothers during pregnancy, labor, and the year following the birth of a child, and to inform policy makers and the establishment and administration of relevant programs.  It is estimated that up to fifty percent of all maternal deaths are preventable, thus maternal mortality review panels are integral to saving the lives of women who are pregnant or within one year after a pregnancy.  Findings from review panels guide the creation of treatment protocols, education campaigns, and standardization of pregnancy care, leading to more lives saved.

 

     Your Committee further finds that comprehensive multidisciplinary reviews of child deaths, as performed in the past by the Hawaii child death review system that was established by Act 369, Session Laws of Hawaii 1997, are needed to understand risk factors for and prevent future child deaths and keep children in the State of Hawaii safe and healthy.  The Hawaii child death review system was intended to produce in-depth, accurate, and timely administration of child health and protection programs and appropriate data reporting to federal and state agencies.  However, the system has been inactive since 2011 and consequently, these important child death reviews are not currently being conducted in the State.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Inserting findings that outline the importance of comprehensive multidisciplinary reviews of child and maternal deaths;

 

     (2)  Deleting language that would have established the maternal mortality review panel, including provisions related to members, duties, access to information, and confidentiality of information;

 

     (3)  Inserting language to require the Director of Health to submit an annual report to the Legislature on the status of child death reviews by the Department;

 

     (4)  Inserting language to require the Director of Health to submit an annual report to the Legislature on the status of maternal death reviews by the Department;

 

     (5)  Requiring any person, hospital, sanitorium, nursing or rest home, or other similar medical facility to provide information or other materials relating to the condition and treatment of any person to the maternal and perinatal mortality study committee of the Hawaii Medical Association, any in-hospital staff committee, or the Department of Health for studies to reduce morbidity or mortality;

 

     (6)  Deleting an appropriation for $10,000 for the implementation and operation of the Hawaii maternal mortality review panel;

 

     (7)  Inserting an appropriation for $150,000 for the Department of Health to conduct child death reviews and to implement a program for the performance of maternal death reviews; and

 

     (8)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2317, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2317, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health,

 

 

 

________________________________

ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair