The House Committee on Higher Education on March 14, 2025, heard support for Senate Bill 1252 SD2, a measure that would require the University of Hawaii Board of Regents to establish a specialized training program to educate health-care providers about Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia and would appropriate funds for the program. Witnesses from the Alzheimer’s Association of Hawaii and other advocates urged the committee to support greater training across professions that provide direct care.

Kobe Chock of the Alzheimer’s Association said the proposed program is intended to reach physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses and social workers and to be delivered through the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) and other UH units and community colleges, including via virtual courses. “We identified these professions as all of these have direct care that they provide to those facing Alzheimer’s,” Chock told the committee, adding that community college-level courses for certified nursing assistants also play a role in care.

Committee members discussed program design and cost. Chock said the university’s written testimony suggested staffing of a couple positions and an approximate funding estimate of about $500,000; he offered to provide a more detailed curriculum breakdown to the committee record. The chair said he intended to incorporate JABSOM’s recommendations so the medical school could serve a coordinator role. The committee agreed to defer SB 1252 to a continued hearing on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, with an HD 1 to be circulated before that meeting.

Why it matters: Supporters said the program aims to close training gaps across professions that assess and care for people with dementia. Opponents were not recorded in the transcript; the university did not have a speaker in-room but had provided written comment. The chair said changes to how the bill is drafted are necessary to avoid placing the program directly in the Board of Regents’ governing language; the HD 1 will blank out appropriations and FTE counts and add a defective date so the finance committee can consider funding.

The committee did not vote on the measure on March 14; the hearing record shows the chair’s plan to circulate an HD 1 and continue the item on March 19.