2023 Tennessee Code › Title 68 - HEALTH, SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION (§§ 68-1-NEW — 68-221-1319) › SAFETY (§§ 68-101-101 — 68-143-103) › Chapter 140 - EMERGENCY SERVICES (§§ 68-140-101 — 68-140-604) › Part 1 - EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICE AREA TELECOMMUNICATIONS (§§ 68-140-101 — 68-140-109) › Section 68-140-102 - Part definitions

As used in this part, unless the context otherwise requires:
(1)
"Category 'B' hospital" means a hospital facility within this state assigned to such category by the health facilities commission;
(2)
"Commissioner" means the commissioner of health;
(3)
"Department" means the department of health;
(4)
"Emergency medical entity" means any singular facility, providing emergency medical services to the general public, either resident or transient, in this state;
(5)
"Emergency medical service area" or "emergency medical services area" means that geographic area of this state that provides ninety-five percent (95%) or essentially all of the definitive emergency medical care for all emergencies and for critically ill and injured patients. The area shall contain adequate population, available medical resources, a category "B" hospital, and a sufficient economic base to implement and sustain an emergency medical services system;
(6)
"Emergency medical services" means the services used in responding to the perceived individual need for immediate medical care in order to prevent loss of life or aggravation of physiological or psychological illness or injury;
(7)
"Integrated and compatible" means all essentially alike and able to accomplish like tasks;
(8)
"Interfacility telecommunications" means the exchange of ideas, instruction, or intelligence, pertaining to emergency medical services, between two (2) or more emergency medical entities;
(9)
"Professional medical community" means those licensed, or permitted, individuals or institutions capable of rendering corrective action to human life threatening illness or injury;
(10)
"Resource inventory" means the tabulation of all equipment capable of performing telecommunications actions within, from, or to an emergency medical entity;
(11)
"Reviewing authority for applications" means that individual, or designated representative, capable of determining the validity of a request to any higher agency for a required permit or license;
(12)
"Telecommunications" means those voice, data, and signaling transmissions and receptions between emergency medical service entities, including, but not limited to, ambulances, rescue vehicles, hospitals or other related emergency receiving facilities, emergency communications centers, physicians and emergency medical personnel, paging facilities, law enforcement agencies, fire control agencies, poison control centers, suicide prevention agencies, and disaster control centers;
(13)
"Telecommunications resource coordination center" means that urban center of population within an emergency medical service area providing the facilities and manpower to maintain telecommunications contact, on a continuous basis, with other emergency medical entities within the emergency medical service area; and
(14)
"Telecommunications subsystem" means any telecommunications system subordinate to, and under the control of, an established telecommunications system.
Amended by 2023 Tenn. Acts, ch. 466, s 68, eff. 7/1/2024.
Acts 1977, ch. 21, § 2; T.C.A., §§ 53-5122, 68-39-202, 68-140-202.