The state will have the power to summarily suspend the licenses of doctors, dentists, nurses and pharmacists who lose their practicing privileges in other states under a bill adopted by the Senate on Friday and headed to Gov. David Ige for his consideration.

If signed into law, Senate Bill 2675 also would allow the Hawaii regulatory boards for those professions to match disciplinary action taken by another state or by a federal agency against someone also licensed in Hawaii. The other agency’s discipline order would serve as the basis for the action, negating the need to reinvestigate the case so that sanctions could be imposed sooner locally.

Proponents of the legislation, which passed the House earlier in the week, said the changes are necessary to provide timely protections for consumers in cases in which their providers are disciplined elsewhere because of misconduct.

Many health care professionals today have licenses in multiple states.

The bill was adopted in response to a Honolulu Star-Advertiser series in November that revealed that doctors who lost their licenses elsewhere were able to continue practicing here for months or even years because of the slow pace of the disciplinary process.

“Anything that can assist and facilitate that process is certainly welcomed,” said gerontologist Cullen Hayashida, who served on the Hawaii Medical Board from 1997 to 2006.

The Ige administration introduced a measure aimed at streamlining the physician disciplinary process, but legislators expanded the approach to include other health care providers.

The legislation, which cites the findings of the Star-Advertiser series, was supported by organizations representing doctors and dentists.

Sen. Josh Green, the only practicing physician in the Legislature, said the changes would benefit not just consumers but health care professionals by helping more quickly remove the outliers from practicing.

“I think it’s a very solid approach to make sure we have doctors and dentists in good standing,” said Green (D, Naalehu-Kailua-Kona).

Under SB 2675, which was introduced by Sen. Rosalyn Baker (D, West Maui-South Maui) and several of her colleagues, the boards for doctors, dentists, pharmacists and nurses also would be able to deny a license to a new applicant if he or she has been disciplined in another state.

A health care professional whose license is summarily suspended because his or her license was revoked or suspended elsewhere would not be able to practice in Hawaii until a final order is issued by the overseeing board. The licensee, however, can request a hearing to challenge the summary suspension.

While Hayashida applauded the passage of the bill, he said he hopes the Legislature next year addresses another major problem highlighted in the Star-Advertiser series: a dearth of public information on physician backgrounds.

The newspaper found that the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs’ website for physician profiles is not nearly as consumer-friendly as those in many other states and lacks some basic information, such as discipline imposed by other states.

The Star-Advertiser wasn’t the only publication to find the site lacking.

A Consumer Reports review of medical board websites from all 50 states last month ranked Hawaii’s near the bottom, beating only Mississippi, Indiana and New Mexico, according to the magazine.

Hawaii earned one of the lowest marks nationally for failing to provide the public easy access to disciplinary records of doctors licensed here, Consumer Reports said.

“Patients have a right to know whether their doctor has been disciplined for bad behavior, especially when it could endanger their health,” said Lisa McGiffert, director of the organization’s Safe Patient Project, in a statement. “But Hawaii makes it very hard to find out if a doctor practicing in the state has a history of harming patients or putting them at risk.”