BILL NUMBER: AB 1223	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member O'Donnell

                        FEBRUARY 27, 2015

   An act to amend Section 1797.220 of the Health and Safety Code,
relating to emergency medical services.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 1223, as introduced, O'Donnell. Emergency medical services:
noncritical cases.
   Existing law, the Emergency Medical Services System and the
Prehospital Emergency Medical Care Personnel Act, authorizes each
county to develop an emergency medical services program. The act
further authorizes a local emergency medical services (EMS) agency to
develop and submit a plan to the Emergency Medical Services
Authority for an emergency medical services system, and requires the
local EMS agency, using state minimum standards, to establish
policies and procedures that may require basic life support emergency
medical transportation services to meet any medical control
requirements including dispatch, patient destination policies,
patient care guidelines, and quality assurance requirements.
   This bill would authorize the policies and procedures to allow for
the transportation of a noncritical case that cannot be immediately
admitted to a hospital emergency room to another appropriate medical
treatment facility, including, but not limited to, a clinic, as
defined, or a doctors' office.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  Section 1797.220 of the Health and Safety Code is
amended to read:
   1797.220.   (a)    The local EMS agency, using
state minimum standards, shall establish policies and procedures
approved by the medical director of the local EMS agency to assure
medical control of the EMS system. The policies and procedures
approved by the medical director may require basic life support
emergency medical transportation services to meet any medical control
requirements including dispatch, patient destination policies,
patient care guidelines, and quality assurance requirements. 
   (b) The policies and procedures adopted pursuant to subdivision
(a) may allow for the transportation of a noncritical case that
cannot be immediately admitted to a hospital emergency room to
another appropriate medical treatment facility, including, but not
limited to, a clinic as defined in Section 1200 or an establishment
owned or leased and operated as a clinic or office by one or more
licensed health care practitioners and used as an office for the
practice of their profession.