Louisiana Administrative Code › Title 48 - PUBLIC HEALTH-GENERAL › Part I - General Administration › Subpart 5 - Health Planning › Chapter 115 - Health Resource requirements › Subchapter B - Facility or Service-Specific Criteria and Standards › Section I-11521 - Emergency Medical Services A. Definition/Description

Current through Register Vol. 50, No. 6, June 20, 2024
1. Title 40 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes
					 established the Emergency Medical Services program within the Louisiana
					 Department of Health & Human Resources. The department was granted the
					 authority to adopt rules and regulations pertaining to Emergency medical
					 Services in Louisiana and to responsibility for coordinating the planning and
					 implementation of the statewide Emergency Medical Services systems.
2. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) are
					 services utilized in responding to a perceived need for immediate medical care
					 to prevent death or aggravation of physiological or psychological illness or
					 injury. The purpose of EMS is to respond to and care for people who have
					 experienced a medical emergency, including care at the scene of the emergency,
					 during transportation to a medical facility, and in the hospital emergency
					 department or specialty care center.
3. For an EMS system to respond effectively,
					 each element of the integrated system must be in place, so that assistance is
					 summoned when needed and patients are transferred smoothly along the chain of
					 emergency medical care. An EMS system should include an organized method for
					 detecting, reporting, providing initial care, sorting or triage, transporting,
					 caring for patients en route, giving acute definitive care to and providing
					 linkage to continued care and rehabilitation for acutely ill or injured
					 patients.
4. Although the
					 development of multi-institutional systems for coordination or consolidation of
					 health services such as EMS is a national health priority, there have been
					 problems in successful community planning. Some of the obstacles have been the
					 lack of clear federal guidelines, lack of coordination between agencies with
					 program responsibilities, and lack of uniformity and reliability of data to
					 indicate need for improvement.
5.
					 The specific health status and environmental characteristics of the state or
					 service area impact the development of an EMS system. An individual's
					 residential and occupational settings greatly affect his degree of risk, of
					 becoming an emergency victim, and of coming into contact with an emergency
					 situation. Local occupational settings such as industrial or offshore
					 workplaces carry high risk of life-threatening events and risk of medical
					 attention not being readily available. In rural communities residents are
					 separated from each other and from medical assistance by long distances. Low
					 population density creates unique needs; sparsely populated areas have higher
					 rates of traffic fatalities, and most emergency conditions are complicated by
					 the increased response time to emergencies. In these areas there is a greater
					 need for CPR programs due to high response time of emergency medical personnel
					 and low utilization or lack of medical facilities and personnel. Population
					 groups such as the poor and ethnic minorities are also at a higher risk for
					 emergencies than the general population, as a result of poor health and
					 inadequate economic access to medical care.
6. Heart disease is the leading cause of
					 death in Louisiana. The majority of heart-related deaths are due to acute
					 myocardial infarction, with death usually occurring before the patient reaches
					 a hospital. It has been estimated that 10% of deaths attributable to heart
					 disease and 15% of deaths attributable to accidents could be prevented if
					 proper medical treratment were initiated at the scene of the incident and
					 continued en route to a medical facility. Thus, the intent of an EMS system is
					 to decrease current death and disability rates.
7. Elements of an EMS System
a. The key to saving emergency patients from
					 unnecessary death, disability, and complications from injury involves careful
					 evaluation of the patient's condition, followed by a stablization of the
					 patient at the scene, with an expeditious and careful trip to a medical
					 facility. The following emergency patient's needs can be met through an
					 effective EMS system:
i. discovery and
					 notification of accident/illness;
ii. pre-hospital emergency care;
iii. transportation to designated
					 facility;
iv. initial care in
					 appropriate critical care unit; v. secondary definitive care.