Amended in Senate June 30, 2015

Amended in Assembly May 14, 2015

Amended in Assembly May 5, 2015

Amended in Assembly April 14, 2015

California Legislature—2015–16 Regular Session

Assembly BillNo. 1223


Introduced by Assembly Member O'Donnell

February 27, 2015


An act to add Sections 1797.120 and 1797.225 to the Health and Safety Code, relating to emergency medical services.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

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:

P2    1

SECTION 1.  

Section 1797.120 is added to the Health and
2Safety Code
, to read:

3

1797.120.  

(a) The authority shall develop, using input from
4stakeholders, including, but not limited to, hospitals, local EMS
5agencies, and public and private EMS providers, and, after approval
6by the commission pursuant to Section 1799.50, adopt a statewide
7standard methodology for the calculation and reporting by a local
8EMS 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
11 patientbegin delete transported by a local EMS agencyend delete at an emergency
12department and the time that thebegin delete emergency department assumes
13responsibility for care of the patient following the transfer of the
14patient to a stretcher utilized by the emergency department.end delete
begin insert patient
15is transferred to an emergency department gurney, bed, chair, or
16other acceptable location and the emergency department assumes
17responsibility for care of the patient.end insert

18

SEC. 2.  

Section 1797.225 is added to the Health and Safety
19Code
, to read:

20

1797.225.  

(a) A local EMS agency may adopt policies and
21procedures for calculating and reporting ambulance patient offload
22time, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 1797.120.

23(b) A local EMS agency that adopts policies and procedures for
24calculating and reporting ambulance patient offload time pursuant
25to subdivision (a) shall do all of the following:

26(1) Use the statewide standard methodology for calculating and
27reporting ambulance patient offload time developed by the
28authority pursuant to Section 1797.120.

P3    1(2) Establish criteria for the reporting of, and quality assurance
2followup for, abegin delete “never event,”end deletebegin insert nonstandard patient offload time,end insert
3 as defined in subdivision (c).

4(c) begin insert(1)end insertbegin insertend insertFor the purposes of this section, abegin delete “never event” occurs
5whenend delete
begin insert “nonstandard patient offload time” means thatend insert the
6ambulance patient offload time for a patient exceeds a period of
7time designated in the criteria established by the local EMS agency
8pursuant to paragraph (2) of subdivision (b).

begin insert

9(2) “Nonstandard patient offload time” does not include
10instances in which the ambulance patient offload time exceeds the
11period set by the local EMS agency due to acts of God, natural
12disasters, or manmade disasters.

end insert


O

    95