It's fairly obvious the Arizona Legislature had using Emergency Medical Responder’s in rural areas with under 10,000 people like Dolan Springs and Meadview.
The law seems pretty clear so I contacted our state representatives explaining we had no fire or EMS many hours some days. They said they understood the problem and would look into it.
Original Post
Every time I ask why we don’t use Emergency
Medical Responder’s to drive our ambulance I’m told we can’t, THE LAW says we must have 2 EMT’s or an EMT and a paramedic.
So I did some research on the laws
governing EMR’s and found that wasn’t really true…
Not the way I read the law, so read it for yourself, tell me if I'm wrong..
The legislature understood
the need for EMR’s in rural areas like ours. That’s why when they wrote the EMS
laws they allowed Emergency Medical Responder’s to drive ambulances in smaller
communities like ours.
The law says an ambulance serving a
rural area with a population of less than 10,000 must have at least one EMT or
Paramedic….
The other “ambulance attendant” can
be an Emergency Medical Responder who is employed by an ambulance
service whose primary responsibility is driving the ambulance
This information is from the EMS
Bureau Statutes and Rules April 2019
36-2202. Duties of
the director;
qualifications of medical director
J. The standards, criteria and
procedures adopted by the director pursuant to subsection A, paragraph 5 of
this section shall require that ambulance services serving a rural or
wilderness certificate of necessity area with a population of less than ten thousand persons according to
the most recent United States decennial census have at least one ambulance
attendant as defined in section 36-2201, paragraph 6, subdivision (a) and one
ambulance attendant as defined in section 36-2201, paragraph 6, subdivision
(b) staffing an ambulance while transporting a patient and that ambulance
services serving a population of ten thousand persons or more according to the
most recent United States decennial census have at least one ambulance
attendant as defined in section 36-2201, paragraph 6, subdivision (a) and one
ambulance attendant as defined
36-2201. Definitions
EMR’s are mentioned 5 times in 36-2201
6. "Ambulance attendant" means any of the following: (a) An emergency medical technician,
an advanced emergency medical technician, an emergency medical technician I-99
or a paramedic whose primary responsibility is the care of patients in an
ambulance and who meets the standards and criteria adopted pursuant to section
36-2204. (b) An emergency medical
responder who is employed by an ambulance service operating under section
36-2202 and whose primary responsibility is the driving of an ambulance.
(c) A physician who is licensed pursuant to title 32, chapter 13 or 17. (d) A
professional nurse who is licensed pursuant to title 32, chapter 15 and who
meets the state board of nursing criteria to care for patients in the
prehospital care system. (e) A professional nurse who is licensed pursuant to
title 32, chapter 15 and whose primary responsibility is the care of patients
in an ambulance during an interfacility transport.
8. "Basic life support"
means the level of assessment and care identified in the scope of practice
approved by the director for the emergency
medical responder and emergency medical technician.
16. "Emergency medical responder" as an ambulance
attendant means a person who has been trained in an emergency medical responder program certified by the director or in
a certified by the director to render services pursuant to section 36-2205.
36-2204.
Medical control
11.
Standards for ambulance service and medical transportation that give
consideration to the differences between urban, rural and wilderness areas
36-2205.
Permitted treatment and medication; certification requirement; protocols A. The
director, in consultation with the medical director of the emergency medical
services and trauma system, the emergency medical services council and the
medical direction commission, shall establish protocols, which may include
training criteria, governing the medical treatments, procedures, medications
and techniques that may be administered or performed by each classification of
emergency medical care technician. These protocols shall consider the differences
in treatments and procedures for regional, urban, rural and wilderness areas and shall require that emergency medical
care technicians authorized to perform advanced life support procedures render
these treatments, procedures, medications or techniques only under the
direction of a physician.
ARTICLE 2
REGULATION OF AMBULANCES AND AMBULANCE SERVICES 36-2232. Director; powers and
duties; regulation of ambulance services; inspections; response time compliance
2. Regulate
operating and response times of ambulances to meet the needs of the public and
to ensure adequate service. The rules adopted by the director for certificated
ambulance service response times shall include uniform standards for urban,
suburban, rural and wilderness geographic areas within the certificate of
necessity based on, at a minimum, population density, geographic and medical
considerations
ARTICLE 9.
GROUND AMBULANCE CERTIFICATE OF NECESSITY R9-25-901. Definitions (Authorized by
A.R.S. § 36-2202 (A))
37. “Rural
area” means a geographic region with a population of less than 40,000
residentsthat is not a suburban area.
I went through Emergency Medical Responder training with NACFD a couple years ago. The main difference in basic EMR and EMT training is that EMT’s get more training on transporting patients, and spend 10 hours or so in an emergency department.
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