Mississippi Administrative Code › Title 15 - Mississippi Department of Health › Part 12 - Bureau of Emergency Medical Services › Subpart 31 - Emergency Medical Services › Chapter 1 - GENERAL AUTHORITY AND AMBULANCE SERVICE LICENSURE › Subchapter 1 - General Authority and Ambulance Service Licensure › Rule 15-12-31-1.1.2 - Definitions

Current through June 25, 2024
The following terms shall have the following meanings as
						used in this Part:
1.
"Advanced
					 EMT"
means a person providing basic and limited advanced emergency care
					 and transportation for critical and emergent patients who access the emergency
					 medical system. This individual possesses the basic knowledge and skills
					 necessary to provide patient care and transportation. AEMT function as a part
					 of a comprehensive EMS response, under medical oversight. AEMTs perform
					 interventions with the basic and advanced equipment typically found on an
					 ambulance. (National EMS Scope of Practice Model) AEMTs must possess valid
					 licensed issued by the BEMS.
2.
"Advanced life Support"
means a sophisticated level of
					 pre-hospital and interhospital emergency care which includes basic life support
					 functions including cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), plus cardiac
					 defibrillation, telemetered electrocardiography, administration of
					 antiarrhythmic agents, intravenous therapy, administration of specific
					 medications, drugs and solutions, use of adjunctive ventilation devices, trauma
					 care and other authorized techniques and procedures.
3.
"Advanced life support
					 personnel"
means persons other than physicians engaged in the provision
					 of advanced life support, as defined, and regulated by rules and regulations
					 promulgated pursuant to Section
					 41-60-13.
4.
"Advanced Life Support
					 Services"
means implementation of the 15 components of an EMS system to
					 a level capability which provides noninvasive and invasive emergency patient
					 care designed to optimize the patient's chances of surviving the emergency
					 situation. Services shall include use of sophisticated transportation vehicles,
					 a communications capability (two-way voice and/or biomedical telemetry) and
					 staffing by Advanced EMTs and Paramedics providing on-site, pre-hospital mobile
					 and hospital intensive care under medical control.
5.
"Ambulance"
means any
					 privately or publicly owned land or air vehicle that is especially designed,
					 constructed, modified or equipped to be used, maintained and operated upon the
					 streets, highway or airways of this state to assist persons who are sick,
					 injured, wounded or otherwise incapacitated or helpless.
6.
"Ambulance Placement Strategy
					 (System Status Plan)"
means a planned outline or protocol governing the
					 deployment and event-driven redeployment of the ambulance service's resources,
					 both geographically and by time-of-day/day-of-week. Every system has a plan;
					 the plan may be written or not, elaborate, or simple, efficient, or wasteful,
					 effective, or deadly.
7.
"Ambulance Post"
means a designated location for ambulance
					 placement within the system status plan. Depending upon its frequency and type
					 of use, a "post" may be a facility with sleeping quarters or day rooms for
					 crews, or simply a street-corner or parking lot location to which units are
					 sometimes deployed.
8.
"Ambulance Service Area"
means the geographic response area of the
					 licensed ambulance service. The service area must correspond to each individual
					 service license. The service's employee staffing plan, ambulance placement
					 strategy and available resources must be commensurate with the service
					 area.
9.
"Area wide EMS
					 System"
means an emergency medical service area (trade, catchment,
					 market, patient flow) that provides essentially all of the definitive emergency
					 medical care (95%) for all emergencies, including the most critically ill and
					 injured patients. Only highly specialized and limited-use services may need to
					 be obtained outside of the area. The area must contain adequate population and
					 available medical resources to implement and sustain an EMS operation. At least
					 three major modes exist: (a) multiple urbanized communities and their related
					 suburbs; (b) a metropolitan center and its surrounding rural areas; and (c) a
					 metropolitan center and extreme rural-wilderness settings. The areas may be
					 inter- or intra-state.
10.
"Associate/Receiving Hospital"
means a designated participating
					 hospital working in conjunction with and under the supervision of the Resource
					 Hospital to carry out the system implementation. They shall have an emergency
					 department/service which offers emergency care 24 hours a day, with at least
					 one physician available to the emergency care area within approximately 30
					 minutes through a medical staff call roster. Specialty consultation must be
					 available by request of the attending medical staff member or by transfer to a
					 designated hospital where definitive care can be provided. They must be capable
					 of providing 24-hour-a-day acute care to critically ill patients. They do not,
					 however, have to be equipped with biomedical telemetry within its
					 confines.
11.
"Automated
					 External Defibrillator (AED)"
means a defibrillator which: a) is capable
					 of cardiac rhythm analysis; b) will charge and deliver a shock after
					 electrically detecting the presence of a cardiac dysrhythmia or is a
					 shock-advisory device in which the defibrillator will analyze the rhythm and
					 display a message advising the operator to press a "shock" control to deliver
					 the shock; c) must be capable of printing a post event summary (at a minimum
					 the post event summary should include times, joules delivered, ECG) and d) an
					 on screen display of the ECG. (optional)
12.
"Base Station Hospital"
means designated participating hospital working in conjunction with and under
					 the supervision of the Resource Hospital to carry out the systems
					 implementation. These hospitals may function as a pre-hospital Communications
					 Resource as defined in the section on Medical Direction. The hospitals may
					 participate in training and evaluation of ALS personnel. They must have
					 emergency department's staffed 24-hours-a-day by critical care nurses and at
					 least one emergency physician or physicians under the direction and supervision
					 of a physician totally versed and committed to emergency medicine. It must have
					 specialty consultation available within approximately 30 minutes by members of
					 the medical staff or by senior level residents. Pre-hospital ALS personnel
					 transmit patient information to the Base Station Hospitals and receive
					 appropriate medical directions from them. The hospitals should be equipped with
					 voice and biomedical telemetry equipment. Each Base Station Hospital must have
					 an On-Line Medical Director.
13.
"Basic Life Support Services (BLS)"
means implementation of the 15
					 components of and EMS system to a level of capability which provides
					 pre-hospital noninvasive emergency patient care designed to optimize the
					 patient's chance of surviving the emergency situation. There would be universal
					 access to and dispatch of national standard ambulances, with appropriate
					 medical and communication equipment operated by Emergency Medical
					 Technicians-Ambulance. Regional triage protocols should be used to direct
					 patients to appropriately categorized hospitals.
14.
"Board"
means the
					 Mississippi State Board of Health.
15.
"Bypass"
(diversion) means a
					 medical protocol or medical order for the transport of an EMS patient past a
					 normally used EMS receiving facility to a designated medical facility for the
					 purpose for accessing more readily available or appropriate medical
					 care.
16.
"Certificate"
means official acknowledgment that an individual has
					 successfully completed (i) the recommended basic emergency medical technician
					 training course referred to in this chapter which entitles that individual to
					 perform the functions and duties of an emergency medical technician, or (ii)
					 the recommended medical first responder training course referred to in this
					 chapter which entitles that individual to perform the functions and duties of a
					 medical first responder.
17.
"Critical Care Units (Centers)"
means sophisticated treatment
					 facilities in large medical centers and hospitals that provide advanced
					 definitive care for the most critically ill patients. The units are available
					 for the diagnosis and care of specific patient problems including major trauma,
					 burn, spinal cord injury, poisoning, acute cardiac, high-risk infant, and
					 behavioral emergencies.
18.
"Communication Resource"
means an entity responsible for
					 implementation of direct medical control (See detailed description in section
					 on Medical Direction).
19.
"Delegated Practice"
means only physicians are licensed to
					 practice medicine. Pre-hospital providers must act only under the medical
					 direction of a physician.
20.
"Department"
means the Mississippi State Department of Health,
					 Bureau of Emergency Medical Services.
21.
"Direct Medical Control"
means when a physician provides immediate medical direction to pre- hospital
					 providers in remote locations.
22.
"Diversion"
- see "Bypass."
23.
"DOT"
means the United
					 States Department of Transportation.
24.
"Emergency Medical
					 Condition"
means a medical condition manifesting itself by acute
					 symptoms of sufficient severity, including severe pain, psychiatric
					 disturbances and/or symptoms of substance abuse, such that a prudent layperson
					 who possesses an average knowledge of health and medicine could reasonably
					 expect the absence of immediate medical attention to result in placing the
					 health of the individual (or, with respect to a pregnant woman, the health of
					 the woman or her unborn child) in serious jeopardy, serious impairment to
					 bodily functions, or serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part;
25.
"Emergency Medical Services
					 (EMS)"
means services utilized in responding to a perceived individual's
					 need for immediate medical care to prevent death or aggravation of
					 physiological or psychological illness or injury.
26.
"EMS Personnel"
means key
					 individual EMS providers. This includes physician, emergency, and critical care
					 nurse, EMT, Advanced EMT, Paramedic, dispatchers, telephone screeners, first
					 aid responders, project administrators and medical consultants and system
					 coordinators.
27.
"EMS
					 System"
means a system which provides for the arrangement of personnel,
					 facilities, and equipment of the effective and coordinated delivery of health
					 care services in an appropriate geographical area under emergency conditions
					 (occurring as a result of the patient's condition or because of natural
					 disasters or similar conditions). The system is managed by a public or
					 nonprofit private entity. The components of an EMS System include:
A. Manpower
B. Training
C. Communications
D. Transportation
E. Facilities
F. Critical Care Units
G. Public Safety Agencies
H. Consumer Participation
I. Access to Care
J. Patient Transfer
K. Coordinated Patient
					 Recordkeeping
L. Public Information
					 and Education
M. Review and
					 Evaluation
N. Disaster
					 Plan
O. Mutual Aid