AB 1223, as amended, O'Donnell. Emergency medical services: ambulance transportation.
Existing law establishes the Emergency Medical Services Authority, and requires it to adopt regulations that further the purpose of establishing a statewide system for emergency medical services. 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 to assure medical control of the emergency medical services system 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 a local EMS agency to adopt policies and procedures relating to ambulance patient offload time, as defined. The bill would require the authority to develop a statewide standard methodology for the calculation and reporting by a local EMS agency of ambulance patient offload time.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: no.
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
Section 1797.120 is added to the Health and
2Safety Code, to read:
(a) The authority shall develop, using input from
4stakeholders, including, but not limited to, hospitals, local EMS
5agencies, and public and private EMSbegin delete serviceend delete providers,begin insert and, after
6approval by the commission pursuant to Section 1799.50, adoptend insert
7 a statewide standard methodology for the calculation and reporting
8by a local EMS agency of ambulance patient offload time.
9(b) For the purposes of this section, “ambulance patient offload
10time” is defined as the interval between the arrival of an ambulance
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patient transported by a local EMS agency at an emergency
12department and the time that the emergency department assumes
13responsibility for care of the patient following the transfer of the
14patient to a stretcher utilized by the emergency department.
Section 1797.225 is added to the Health and Safety
16Code, to read:
(a) A local EMS agency may adopt policies and
18procedures for calculating and reporting ambulance patient offload
19time, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 1797.120.
20(b) A local EMS agency that adopts policies and procedures for
21calculating and reporting ambulance patient offload time pursuant
22to subdivision (a) shall do all of the following:
23(1) Use the statewide standard methodology for calculating and
24reporting ambulance patient offload time developed by the
25authority pursuant to Section 1797.120.
26(2) Establish criteria for the reporting
of, and quality assurance
27followup for, a “never event,” as defined in subdivision (c).
28(c) For the purposes of this section, a “never event” occurs when
29the ambulance patient offload time for a patient exceeds a period
P3 1of time designated in the criteria established by the local EMS
2agency pursuant to paragraph (2) of subdivision (b).
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