S.B. 798 Summary

• Expands the definition of "quality assurance committee" under Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 624-25.5 to include interdisciplinary committees composed of representatives from multiple health care organizations.

• Establishes peer review protections for multidisciplinary committees with members from hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies, hospices, health maintenance organizations, and other health care providers that collectively work to monitor and evaluate patient care.

• Allows these inter-organizational quality assurance committees to identify, study, and correct deficiencies in health care delivery with the goal of reducing patient harm and improving quality of care, with protections from use in medical malpractice lawsuits.

• Maintains existing protections previously limited to committees formed by individual facilities and extends them to committees formed collaboratively by multiple health care organizations, similar to protections already provided to statewide trauma care system committees.

• Effective July 1, 2050.