Governor signs two new critical health care laws

Olympia -- Today, Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law two important bills to improve health care in Washington -- House Bill 1103 - health care provider discipline - and Senate Bill 6457- to monitor incidences of medical errors.

Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Roy) had worked for four years to finally get approval of legislation (House Bill 1103) to create a uniform system for disciplining incompetent or dangerous health care providers, including instances of negligence, incompetence or even criminal actions such as sexual misconduct.

The new law, which covers health care professionals in 62 different health care fields, such as nurses, doctors, chiropractors and others, gives 14 medical boards to decide whether their professional standards have been breached and to move quickly to report those instances to the Department. of  Health.  All sexual misconduct investigations will be handled by DOH.

"This new law will provide for background checks on all health care providers who seek to be licensed in our state, and the peers of offenders will deal quickly and firmly with those who have violated their patients' trust," Campbell said. "Most providers in our state a re very competent, professional and conscientious, but, as in most every profession, there are exceptions of practitioners who don't belong in the profession."

A second measure, (SB 6457) sponsored by Sen. Karen Keiser, Chair of the Senate Health & Long Term-Care Committee, and identical to Campbell's bill (HB2670), deals with adverse health events and incidents, or serious errors, such as removing the wrong body part in a surgery. Examples are instances of when the wrong let would be amputated or a clamp or other medical devise was inadvertently left in a patient's body after surgery.

"This new law will open up the reporting process on such instances of adverse health events and serious errors so the public can know the success record of the health facility they choose," Campbell said. "It goes a long way toward our goal of transparency so the public can make informed health care choices."