Nearly 2-1/2 years after California revoked a physician’s medical license for misconduct, local regulators decided Thursday to revoke his Hawaii credentials.

But the chairman of the Hawaii Medical Board, which voted to yank the license of Dr. Daniel Susott, said he’s hoping future cases involving Hawaii-licensed physicians disciplined in other states take less time to resolve.

“We should not see cases like this anymore,” Dr. Niraj Desai, who heads the panel that makes final disciplinary decisions involving doctors, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser after Thursday’s board meeting.

The slow pace Hawaii’s regulatory system takes to decide cases involving physicians sanctioned in other states was the focus of a recent Star-Advertiser series. The newspaper found cases that took years to resolve, even after a physician lost a license in another state but was continuing to practice here.

The delays mostly stemmed from the time it took staff at the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs to investigate and make recommendations to the board.

The series triggered the introduction of bills — still advancing at the Legislature — that are intended to quicken the reciprocal-discipline process, which advocates say would enhance consumer protections.

The case involving Susott illustrated the shortcomings of the Hawaii system.

California’s medical board in October 2013 revoked his license for gross incompetence, unprofessional conduct and dishonesty after investigators discovered he was recommending medical marijuana without adequately examining patients or taking medical histories, according to regulatory documents from that state.

Sometimes, Susott made the recommendations from Hawaii, even though the patients were in California, the records show.

Despite the revocation — the most serious sanction against a doctor’s license — Susott was able to continue practicing in Hawaii and was still treating local patients as recently as last year, according to Hawaii court documents. Susott, who did not attend Thursday’s board meeting, could not be reached for comment.

The newspaper found that reciprocal-discipline cases in Hawaii typically take longer than in other states partly because regulators basically were re-investigating the mainland actions to determine whether such actions constituted violations of local licensing regulations.

In other states where such cases are handled more quickly, medical boards are able to use the discipline orders from elsewhere as the basis for imposing sanctions, negating the need to re-investigate cases.

Two of the bills advancing at the Legislature, Senate Bill 2864 and House Bill 2335, basically would permit the Hawaii board to do the same thing. It also would allow the state to prohibit a physician who has lost the ability to practice elsewhere from practicing in Hawaii until a resolution on the reciprocal-discipline case is reached by the board.

HB 2335 goes a step further, authorizing the board to summarily suspend a license within 48 hours of receipt of evidence that the person’s license has been suspended, revoked or sanctioned elsewhere.

But board members said a two-day turnaround was not possible given the panel’s once-a-month meeting schedule.

If the 48-hour provision eventually is adopted, the state would have to come up with a new process that would allow such quick action, they said.

Ahlani Quiogue, executive officer of the board, said DCCA typically is notified by the Federation of State Medical Boards that a Hawaii-licensed physician has been sanctioned in another state within 24 to 36 hours of the other state alerting the federation.

Given the logistics involved, the fastest the state could summarily suspend a license after such notification is about a month, board members said.

“Thirty days is much too long,” said Dr. Peter Halford, one of the members.

Since the newspaper series was published in November, the board has been able to decide more reciprocal-discipline cases because staff is getting recommendations to the panel more expeditiously, according to Desai, the medical board chairman.

“That has been a very welcomed change,” he said.

In voting to revoke Susott’s license, Desai and his fellow board members accepted the recommendation of a hearings officer that also called for a fine of $1,000.