[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 70 (Tuesday, May 24, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3880-H3881]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                PASS H.R. 2560, THE ELAINE SULLIVAN ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, today I introduced legislation, 
H.R. 2560, that is specifically designed to save lives and reduce 
suffering. It is a small, but significant, measure to protect the 
voiceless and the vulnerable.
  In an instant, a wrong turn, a sudden fall, a missed step, someone, 
indeed anyone, can find himself or herself in a crisis and in need of 
emergency medical care.
  In California alone, nearly 10 million people require emergency room 
care every year. And of those, 1.5 million arrive in critical 
condition. In fact, nationwide, nearly 1 million people arrive in 
emergency rooms each year unconscious or physically unable to give 
informed consent to their care.

[[Page H3881]]

  What happens or what fails to happen in the critical, precious, and 
immediate moments after the single split second of an emergency can be 
the difference between healing and heartbreak, between calamity and 
recovery, between life and death.
  Consider the story of Elaine Sullivan. A very active 71-year-old 
woman, Elaine fell at home while getting into her bathtub. When 
paramedics arrived, they realized that injuries to her mouth and head 
had made her unable to communicate, or as the hospital later 
discovered, to give informed consent for her own care.
  Although stable for the first few days, she began to slip into 
critical condition. Despite having her daughter's contact information 
clearly indicated on her chart, the hospital failed to notify her 
family for 6 days. Tragically, just hours later, Elaine Sullivan died 
alone in the hospital.
  In the aftermath of this tragedy, Elaine Sullivan's daughter, Jan, 
and granddaughter, Laura, turned their personal pain to public action. 
Jan and Laura Greenwald went to work to make sure that what happened to 
their loved one would not happen to others.
  From their research, the Greenwalds learned about other incidents 
like their own, in which families of hospitalized patients were not 
notified at all or notified after lengthy delay. Although uncommon, 
these stories were alarming; but, alas, they were avoidable.
  Let me be clear. Most hospitals notify the next of kin of unconscious 
emergency room arrivals relatively quickly. However, emergency rooms 
are extremely high pressure, intense, and sometimes chaotic 
environments. According to statistics compiled by the American College 
of Emergency Physicians, more than 88 percent of emergency room doctors 
surveyed reported moderate to severe overcrowding in their department. 
In the hustle and bustle of the ER, despite the professionalism and 
dedication of staff, there are real risks that a simple phone call may 
not be able to be made in a timely fashion.
  In the case of Elaine Sullivan, the phone call was not made. In her 
memory and honor, I have introduced this bill so that in the future 
phone calls to loved ones will always be made. The bill, the Elaine 
Sullivan Act, is sensible. It requires hospitals that receive Medicare 
funding to make reasonable efforts to contact a family member, 
specified health care agent, or surrogate decision-maker of 
incapacitated patients within 24 hours of arrival at the emergency 
department.
  The bill is realistic. Modeled after State laws in Illinois and 
California, the bill recognizes that such notifications would be 
difficult and even impractical in certain instances and under certain 
circumstances. Therefore, the 24-hour notification requirement does not 
apply when hospitals implement a disaster or mass casualty program or 
during a declared state of emergency or other local mass casualty 
situation.
  The bill is constructive. The legislation makes Federal grants 
available for the next 5 years to qualified not-for-profit 
organizations to establish and operate a national next of kin registry. 
As a high-speed, electronic free search service, the voluntary registry 
would help hospitals and government agencies to locate family members 
of the injured, missing, and the deceased.
  How would the registry work? Consider for a moment just one 
distressing, but relevant, scenario. Your loved one, say your spouse, 
is on a business trip. She is out of state and on her own. On the way, 
she is involved in a serious head-on collision. Unconscious and unable 
to communicate, she is rushed to the nearest hospital. Unbeknownst to 
you, your wife lay comatose, fighting for her life, miles from home.
  Doctors and nurses work feverishly to provide emergency medical care 
to a patient who is only a name on the license; but to you, she is the 
love of your life. If the two of you had signed up for the next of kin 
registry, the hospital staff would be able to quickly notify you about 
your wife's critical condition. You could rush to be by her side, share 
critical medical history and information that could help save her life; 
hence, the bill is necessary.
  It is not intended to frustrate the mission of hospitals, but rather 
to facilitate it. It is about notifying the right people at the right 
time in order to share the right information during an emergency. Using 
this crucial medical information while caring for a critically ill 
patient reduces the hospital's own liability. So, such notification is 
vital.
  Not only is it important to have a family member present to comfort 
the patient, but also to make informed decisions that the patient can't 
make for him or herself and to provide the medical history that could 
very well be the difference between life and death.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting 
H.R. 2560--the Elaine Sullivan Act. It is a small but sensible measure 
designed to save lives and ease suffering. Mr. Speaker, we don't know 
when tragedy will strike. But, if it does, we should know that we would 
not be alone. This bill provides the assurance that our loved ones will 
be by our side.

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