Hawaii-2012-HB507-Introduced

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that too many of the elderly suffer devastating and often fatal injuries due to falls. Falls and fall-related injuries among the elderly impose an enormous burden on individuals, society, and Hawaii's health care system. The State's population of people sixty-five years of age and older comprised 14.8 per cent of the 2008 population or 190,067 persons, and in the next twenty years is anticipated to increase to 22.3 per cent of the population or 327,000 persons.

Among the elderly, falls in Hawaii are the leading cause of fatal injuries (forty-five per cent), injury-related hospitalizations (eighty-three per cent), injury-related emergency department visits (fifty-nine per cent), and injury-related emergency medical service calls (eighty-one per cent). Annually, falls result in seventy-eight deaths and nearly 1,800 hospitalizations among Hawaii's elderly. Statistics indicate that every five hours an elderly person is injured so severely by a fall that treatment in a hospital is necessary. Furthermore, these elderly persons often never return home.

Emergency room, hospitalization, rehabilitation, and long‑term average annual costs directly related to senior falls total $143,800,000 per year or $393,000 per day. Access to fall prevention services and programs would significantly reduce these costs. In addition, the early detection of fall occurrences would reduce both costs and suffering by expediting treatment, minimizing serious long-term consequences, reducing the extent of the injury, and in some instances, avoiding death.

Falls among the elderly are a significant public health issue. Yet, currently, there are insufficient resources to develop a coordinated statewide approach to reducing and promptly detecting falls among the elderly.

The legislature finds that a position dedicated to fall prevention and early detection for the elderly should be established in the department of health to serve as a focal point for statewide injury prevention and detection efforts to ensure multidisciplinary support, coordination of prevention and detection efforts, and continuity of implementation and accountability.

The purpose of this Act is to establish the position of statewide fall prevention and early detection coordinator under the department of health and to make an appropriation for the position.

SECTION 2. Chapter 321, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by adding a new section to part I to be appropriately designated and to read as follows:

"§321‑ Statewide fall prevention and early detection coordinator. (a) There is established the position of statewide fall prevention and early detection coordinator within the department of health. The director of health shall employ, without regard to chapters 76 and 89, a statewide fall prevention and early detection coordinator, and shall fix the compensation of that person and may at pleasure dismiss that person.

(b) The statewide fall prevention and early detection coordinator shall develop a statewide approach to falls among the elderly by:

(1) Investigating and examining the immediate and long‑term dangers of fall injuries on the elderly population;

(2) Examining the fiscal impact of falls by the elderly on our medical system and health care costs;

(3) Recommending appropriate interventions and prevention programs to reduce falls by the elderly and health care costs associated with these falls;

(4) Investigating and implementing the most effective means to enhance public awareness that falls are preventable;

(5) Reviewing and developing the potential for increasing for the elderly and their caregivers, on a statewide basis, the availability and accessibility of fall prevention programs that effectively use community resources;

(6) Recommending measures that will promote early detection of falls, particularly for those who live alone or in circumstances where the likelihood of not being discovered soon after a fall is great; and

(7) Investigating and recommending the best way to expand the role of medical and health care professionals in screening, educating, and referring the elderly to fall prevention and early detection services and programs.

For purposes of this subsection, the statewide fall prevention and early detection coordinator shall collaborate with interested stakeholders, including health care facilities, community coalitions, government agencies, and organizations concerned with protecting the elderly and preventing and detecting elderly falls.

(c) The statewide fall prevention and early detection coordinator shall report to the legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of each regular session, beginning with the regular session of 2013, describing the progress made in implementing subsection (b), including the review of fall prevention data and the impact of falls by the elderly on the State's medical system and health care costs.

(d) For the purposes of this section, "the elderly" means persons who are at least sixty-five years of age."

SECTION 3. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $ or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2011-2012 and the same sum or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2012-2013 for the position of statewide fall prevention and early detection coordinator.

The sums appropriated shall be expended by the department of health for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 4. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 5. This Act shall take effect upon its approval; provided that section 3 shall take effect on July 1, 2011.

INTRODUCED BY:	_____________________________

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.B. NO.	507
TWENTY-SIXTH LEGISLATURE, 2011
STATE OF HAWAII