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AB-1229 Advisory task force: ambulance services.(2021-2022)

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Date Published: 04/19/2021 09:00 PM
AB1229:v98#DOCUMENT

Amended  IN  Assembly  April 19, 2021

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2021–2022 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Bill
No. 1229

Introduced by Assembly Member Rodriguez

February 19, 2021

An act to amend Section 1797.123 of, and to add Section 1797.1201 to to, the Health and Safety Code, relating to emergency medical services, and declaring the urgency thereof, to take effect immediately.


LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


AB 1229, as amended, Rodriguez. Emergency Medical Services Authority: ambulances. Advisory task force: ambulance services.
The Emergency Medical Services System and the Prehospital Emergency Medical Care Personnel Act establishes the Emergency Medical Services Authority. The act generally requires the authority, among other things, authority to assess existing emergency medical services for the purpose of determining the need for additional emergency medical services, coordination of emergency medical services, and the effectiveness of emergency medical services. The act further requires the authority to develop, using input from stakeholders, including hospitals, local emergency medical services (EMS) agencies, and public and private EMS providers, and, after specified approval, to adopt, a statewide standard methodology for the calculation and reporting by a local EMS agency of ambulance patient offload time, as defined.

This bill would require the director to establish the Ambulance Patient Offload Delays Task Force, as an advisory body to the authority, for the purpose of addressing the chronic challenges encountered by local emergency medical services systems in achieving established ambulance patient offload time interval standards.

This bill would require the Director of the Emergency Medical Services Authority to appoint and convene an advisory task force, and would further require the director to recommend a project plan for the advisory task force that includes an evaluation relating to ambulance patient offload delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as specified, and an evaluation of adopting technologies to allow EMS systems to better manage resources and improve response times. The bill would require the director to transmit the evaluations conducted by the advisory task force to the authority, in a manner that allows for their timely inclusion in an existing reporting requirement from the authority to the Commission on Emergency Medical Services, and to specified legislative committees.
This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Vote: 2/3   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: NO  

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:


SECTION 1.Section 1797.1201 is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read:
1797.1201.

The director shall establish the Ambulance Patient Offload Delays Task Force, as an advisory body to the authority, for the purpose of addressing the chronic challenges encountered by local emergency medical services systems in achieving established ambulance patient offload time interval standards.

SECTION 1.

 Section 1797.1201 is added to the Health and Safety Code, immediately following Section 1797.120, to read:

1797.1201.
 (a) The director shall do both of the following:
(1) Convene the advisory task force, as established by this section, within 30 days of the effective date of the act adding this section, and thereafter, convene the advisory task force quarterly.
(2) Recommend a project plan for the advisory task force that includes, at a minimum, an evaluation of extending and adopting local EMS directives that were designed to alleviate the ambulance patient offload delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic and an evaluation of adopting technologies that use available data to provide more visibility into hospital capacity to allow EMS systems to better manage resources and improve response times.
(b) The director shall appoint the membership of the advisory task force, which shall include, but not be limited to, all of the following:
(1) Local EMS agency administrator from an urban area.
(2) Local EMS agency administrator from a rural area.
(3) Local EMS agency medical director from an urban area.
(4) Local EMS agency medical director from a rural area.
(5) Representative of rank-and-file EMS personnel.
(6) Fire department medical director from an urban area.
(7) Fire department medical director from a rural area.
(8) Representative from a fire department that provides advanced life support in an urban area.
(9) Representative from a fire department that provides advanced life support in a rural area.
(10) Representative from a private advanced life support provider from an urban area.
(11) Representative from a private advanced life support provider from a rural area.
(c) The director shall transmit the evaluations conducted by the advisory task force to the authority in a manner that allows for their timely inclusion in the reports to the commission prepared pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 1797.123.
(d) On or before December 1, 2022, the director shall submit a report to the Assembly Committee on Emergency Management, the Assembly Committee on Health, the Senate Committee on Health, and the Joint Legislative Committee on Emergency Management on the evaluations of the task force.

SEC. 2.

 Section 1797.123 of the Health and Safety Code is amended to read:

1797.123.
 (a) Upon receipt of data reported by a local EMS agency to the authority pursuant to Section 1797.228, the authority shall calculate ambulance patient offload time by local EMS agency jurisdiction and by each facility in a local EMS agency jurisdiction.
(b) The authority shall report twice per year to the Commission on Emergency Medical Services the ambulance patient offload time by local EMS agency jurisdiction and by each facility in a local EMS agency jurisdiction. The authority shall include the evaluations of the advisory task force as transmitted by the director pursuant to Section 1797.1201.
(c) On or before December 1, 2020, the authority, in collaboration with local EMS agencies, shall submit a report to the Legislature on ambulance patient offload time and recommendations to reduce or eliminate ambulance patient offload time. The report shall be submitted in compliance with Section 9795 of the Government Code.

SEC. 2.SEC. 3.

 This act is an urgency statute necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety within the meaning of Article IV of the California Constitution and shall go into immediate effect. The facts constituting the necessity are:
In order to address the excessive delays being experienced by local emergency medical service providers as a result of the ongoing pandemic, pandemic and the threat of catastrophic wildfires, earthquakes, floods floods, and other hazards, it is necessary for this act to take immediate effect.