BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2260
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB
2260 (Wood)
As Amended May 27, 2016
Majority vote
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|Committee |Votes|Ayes |Noes |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------|
|Health |19-0 |Wood, Maienschein, | |
| | |Bonilla, Burke, | |
| | |Campos, Chiu, | |
| | |Dababneh, Gomez, | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | |Roger Hernández, | |
| | |Lackey, Nazarian, | |
| | |Olsen, Patterson, | |
| | |Ridley-Thomas, | |
| | |Rodriguez, Santiago, | |
| | |Steinorth, Thurmond, | |
| | |Waldron | |
| | | | |
|----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------|
|Appropriations |20-0 |Gonzalez, Bigelow, | |
| | |Bloom, Bonilla, | |
| | |Bonta, Calderon, | |
| | |Chang, Daly, Eggman, | |
| | |Gallagher, Eduardo | |
AB 2260
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| | |Garcia, Roger | |
| | |Hernández, Holden, | |
| | |Jones, Obernolte, | |
| | |Quirk, Santiago, | |
| | |Wagner, Weber, Wood | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY: Requires the Emergency Medical Services Authority
(EMSA) to, before January 1, 2018, determine a single set of
data elements and formatting for air ambulance providers to
submit to local emergency medical services agencies (LEMSAs).
Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires EMSA to convene interested stakeholders for the
purpose of determining the single set of data elements and
formatting. Specifies that the stakeholders include
representatives of LEMSAs, air ambulance providers, and EMSA,
and allows EMSA to reconvene the stakeholders annually to
modify the elements and formatting of the data.
2)Requires the data elements and formatting to comply with the
National EMS Information System (NEMSIS) and California EMS
Information System (CEMSIS) electronic health record.
3)Prohibits EMSA from requiring an air ambulance provider to use
a specific electronic health record system to collect and
share data with LEMSAs.
4)Requires air ambulance providers, in addition to submitting
data to LEMSAs, to submit data directly to EMSA if requested.
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5)Requires air ambulance providers, when submitting data to the
LEMSA, to ensure that the electronic health record system can
be integrated with the LEMSA's NEMSIS and CEMSIS compliant
data system, so the LEMSA can collect data from the provider.
6)Prohibits a LEMSA from requiring additional data elements or
formatting from an air ambulance provider, once the single set
of data elements and formatting has been established as
described in 1) above.
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, one-time General Fund (GF) cost pressure for staff
and consulting costs of $100,000 per year for two years, to
support the stakeholder and regulatory process to create
standardized data elements. If EMSA's Information Technology
(IT) systems need to be modified in order to handle increased
data reporting as a result developing standardized data elements
specific to air ambulance providers, potential GF cost pressure
in the range of $350,000 for IT changes. The current CEMSIS is
already compatible with national standards, but may need to be
customized to allow additional data elements to be reported.
This cost estimate is approximate; the need for IT changes, the
extent of changes, and the corresponding costs would depend on
the outcome of the data standardization effort required by this
bill.
COMMENTS: According to the author, air ambulance providers are
essential EMS providers who provide services on a regional or
statewide basis, crossing county and local EMS authority lines
on a regular basis. All pre-hospital providers must submit
incident and patient data information to the LEMSA with
jurisdiction over each service call. As a result of the
multiple LEMSAs, air ambulance providers submit patient data to
multiple providers. This can be duplicative, and often the data
is not requested or reported in a uniform manner. This
duplication places a significant financial burden on air
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ambulance providers, which this bill will ease by requiring the
submission of a single data set in a consistent format.
EMSA is charged with providing leadership in developing and
implementing EMS systems throughout California and setting
standards for the training and scope of practice of various
levels of EMS personnel. The 33 LEMSAs throughout the state are
responsible for planning, implementing, and managing local
trauma care systems, including assessing needs, developing the
system design, designating trauma care centers, collecting
trauma care data, and quality assurance.
Air ambulances provide services on a regional or statewide
basis. For any given emergency air transport, there may be up
to three different LEMSA jurisdictions involved, including the
LEMSA where the Air Ambulance is based; the LEMSA where the
patient was picked up; and, the LEMSA where the receiving
hospital is located. All of these LEMSAs may have a reasonable
basis for obtaining and reviewing the electronic health record.
A single helicopter base may provide services to and from more
than 10 different LEMSAs. A single helicopter provider with
multiple bases may, over the course of the year, provide
services to and from the majority of the 33 LEMSAs.
NEMSIS was formed in 2001 by the National Association of State
EMS Directors. NEMSIS is the national repository that will be
used to potentially store EMS data from every state in the
nation, and was developed to help states collect more
standardized elements to allow submission to the national
database. CEMSIS is a demonstration project for improving EMS
data analysis across California. CEMSIS offers a secure,
centralized data system for collecting data about individual EMS
requests, patients treated at hospitals, and EMS provider
organizations. At least 14 of California's 33 LEMSAs currently
send a variety of local data collections to CEMSIS on a
voluntary basis, and in return, these local agencies gain access
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to digital tools for running comprehensive reports on their own
data at no cost.
Existing law requires an EMS provider to use an electronic
health record system that exports data in a format that is
compliant with the current versions of CEMSIS and NEMSIS and
includes the data elements that are required by the LEMSA, and
specifies that a LEMSA must not mandate that a provider use a
specific system to collect and share the data. As noted by the
author and sponsors, many LEMSAs have different data reporting
requirements.
Analysis Prepared by:
Lara Flynn / HEALTH / (916) 319-2097 FN:
0003226