Rep. TOM CAMPBELL (R-Roy)
2nd LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT
Olympia office: 334 John L. O'Brien Building
PO Box 40600 Olympia, WA 98504-0600
Office: (360) 786-7912

Major health care discipline bill passes the Senate

Olympia -- The Legislature took a major stride tonight to deal with serious offenses by incompetent and dangerous health care providers, including negligence, incompetence or even criminal actions such as sexual misconduct. The Senate approved  House Bill1103 to establish pilot projects to create a process of discipline authority by the four health commissions in the state. Sexual misconduct will be handled directly by the Department of Health.

Rep. Tom Campbell, who sponsored the bill, said he's worked with the House, the Senate and the governor's office over the past year to come up with a positive approach to deal with the problem of incompetent health care providers.
 
"Most providers in our state are very competent, professional, conscientious providers, but as in most every profession, there is  always a persistent few who just don't belong in the profession," Campbell said.

The bill -- which now goes back to the House for concurrence -- seeks to direct discipline for theft, fraud and incompetence that is very harmful to the patient directly to the boards and commissions that are better staffed to evaluate and sanction such misconduct.

Campbell said this is the first time in 30 years, since the creation of the Uniform Disciplinary Act, that the Legislature has taken such a bold step to deal with these  issues. With this bill, the boards and commissions will be able to permanently revoke licenses of incompetent health practitioners.

"This will also move the process much more quickly to get rid of the backlog of cases before the Department of Health which routinely require many months to be heard, let alone resolved," Campbell said. "They will be able to focus on sexual offenses of health care practitioners, thus greatly reducing their backlog of complaints so they can also move swiftly to remove offenders from practice.
 
The bill also sets standards and performance objectives for boards and commissions to evaluate their ability to improve on the system and continue to improve the process. 

Campbell, who has worked on this issue for years, including getting it passed in the House last year, but not the Senate, said he is so pleased with the result. "This summer I worked with the Governor's office and with Sen. Karen Keiser to try to get a bill passed that will really address the process of removing incompetent health care providers from the field."

"We have a bill that will provide for background checks of all health care providers who seek to be licensed in our state and that will deal quickly and firmly with those who have no business practicing in our state."

Campbell applauded the effort of Senator Keiser, Chair of the Senate Health & Longterm Care Committee, who he said is a "relentless champion of health care in our state," and the Governor and her staff for their leadership in the issue.

"I'm certain we'll be able to move this quickly back through the House with strong approval and that the Governor will sign this bill into law," Campbell added."

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Contact: Rep. Tom Campbell at (360) 786-7912 or campbell.tom@leg.wa.gov