STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2623

                                   Honolulu, Hawaii
                                                     , 2000

                                   RE:  S.B. No. 2254
                                        S.D. 1




Honorable Norman Mizuguchi
President of the Senate
Twentieth State Legislature
Regular Session of 2000
State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred S.B. No.
2254, S.D. 1, entitled: 

     "A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PRIVACY OF HEALTH CARE
     INFORMATION,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this bill is to clarify an important policy
issue in the privacy of health care information law.

     This bill provides that the general rules regarding use and
disclosure of protected health information do not apply to use or
disclosure within the entity that maintains the records.

     Your Committee finds that health care information contains
sensitive material that a patient or patient's family may not
wish to have exposed.  However, this information may need to be
used by different units within the entity such as in a hospital
by a nurse, by a physical therapist, or by a pharmacist, for
example.  Under these circumstances it would be unrealistic to
strictly limit the use of the patient's health care information
by these individual health care professionals.  Therefore,
deleting the phrase "within the entity" is justifiable.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your
Committee on Judiciary that is attached to this report, your
Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No.
2254, S.D. 1, and recommends that it pass Third Reading.

 
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                                   STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2623
                                   Page 2


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



                                   ______________________________
                                   AVERY B. CHUMBLEY, Co-Chair



                                   ______________________________
                                   MATTHEW M. MATSUNAGA, Co-Chair

 
a                                                      SB2254 SD1