This text of Louisiana § 40:1134 (Ambulance Patient Offload Delay Collaborative) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
§1134. Ambulance Patient Offload Delay Collaborative
A. The legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(1)The emergency medical services system (EMS) and hospitals and their
emergency departments are critical components of Louisiana's emergency healthcare delivery
system.
(2)Ambulances throughout the United States and in many other countries are
experiencing significant delays in offloading patients into hospital emergency departments.
(3)The cause of the delay is multifaceted and may include factors such as high
demand on emergency departments, hospital staffing challenges, hospital throughput
procedures, and hospital administrative policies.
(4)Extended ambulance patient offload times are disruptive to the EMS system by
taking the ambulance out of service and decreasing adv
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§1134. Ambulance Patient Offload Delay Collaborative
A. The legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(1) The emergency medical services system (EMS) and hospitals and their
emergency departments are critical components of Louisiana's emergency healthcare delivery
system.
(2) Ambulances throughout the United States and in many other countries are
experiencing significant delays in offloading patients into hospital emergency departments.
(3) The cause of the delay is multifaceted and may include factors such as high
demand on emergency departments, hospital staffing challenges, hospital throughput
procedures, and hospital administrative policies.
(4) Extended ambulance patient offload times are disruptive to the EMS system by
taking the ambulance out of service and decreasing advanced life support services in the
community, which increases healthcare costs and can back up the entire continuum of
emergency health care.
(5) Hospitals and EMS personnel are all acting in the best interest of the patient and
agree that providing the best possible patient care is the goal despite offload delay challenges.
(6) It is imperative that ambulance providers and hospitals collaborate to develop
statewide, regional, or local plans to address the problem of ambulance patient offload
delays.
B.(1) There is hereby created within the Louisiana Department of Health, bureau of
emergency medical services, the Ambulance Patient Offload Delay Collaborative which shall
analyze and develop solutions to the problem of ambulance patient offload delays.
(2) The bureau of emergency medial services shall facilitate discussions and
meetings of a statewide collaborative to include the bureau, the Louisiana Hospital
Association, the Louisiana Ambulance Alliance, and other appropriate stakeholders as
considered necessary by the collaborative.
(3) The collaborative shall hold its first meeting on or before October 1, 2024, and
shall meet as often as is necessary to fulfill the requirement of this Section.
(4) The collaborative shall be responsible for all of the following:
(a) Reviewing the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA)
to clearly understand the rights and responsibilities of ambulance service providers and
hospitals.
(b) Collecting and reviewing currently available data from emergency medical
services and hospitals concerning ambulance patient offload times.
(c) Developing a set of data collection guidelines and performance measures, as well
as a standardized reporting process, to identify and track hospitals that exceed the established
industry standards for patient offload delays. These standards should be based on best
practices and prioritize patient welfare and safety.
(d) Exploring enacted legislation and best practices and policies in other states and
countries that have been successful and promising in resolving or improving ambulance
patient offload delays through processes that may be implemented locally or on a regional
or statewide scale.
(e) Exploring and researching options for reducing demand on hospital emergency
departments from individuals transported by ambulance services, specifically
treatment-in-place ambulance services and ambulance transports to alternative destinations
other than hospital emergency departments for low acuity patients utilizing the 911 system.
Research shall include payment mechanisms and funding options for services provided to
patients which reduce emergency department demands.
(f) Proposing a format for facilitating local collaborative communications between
ambulance service providers and hospital administrators.
C.(1) The collaborative shall prepare a report summarizing its findings and
recommendations, including any data collected in accordance with this Section, for
submission by the department to the House and Senate committees on health and welfare by
February 1, 2025.
(2) The collaborative may continue to meet as necessary after submitting the final
report required in Paragraph (1) of this Subsection. If the collaborative continues to meet,
it shall submit an annual report to the House and Senate committees on health and welfare
by February first of each year.
D. The department may promulgate rules in accordance with the Administrative
Procedure Act to carry out the provisions of this Section.