Emergency medical services.

Existing law, the Emergency Medical Services System and the Prehospital Emergency Medical Care Personnel Act, establishes the Emergency Medical Services Authority. The authority is responsible for the coordination and integration of all statewide activities concerning emergency medical services. The act requires all health facilities to notify prehospital emergency medical care personnel who have provided emergency medical or rescue services and have been exposed to a person afflicted with a reportable disease or condition that they have been exposed and should contact the county health officer under specified conditions. The act also requires a county health officer to immediately notify prehospital emergency medical care personnel that they have been exposed to a reportable disease or condition that the county health officer determines can be transmitted through oral contact or bodily secretions. This bill would require the health facility infection control officer to give that notice immediately to a designated officer, as defined, upon determining, among other things, that the person to whom the prehospital emergency medical care personnel provided emergency medical or rescue services is diagnosed as being afflicted with a reportable communicable disease or condition, as specified, and to give notice to the county health officer with the name and telephone number of the prehospital emergency medical care personnel. The bill would then require the designated officer to notify the prehospital emergency medical care personnel of the exposure immediately or as otherwise specified. The bill would alternatively require the health facility infection control officer, if the names and telephone numbers of the prehospital emergency care personnel have not been provided to the facility, as specified, to notify the designated officer, as defined, of the employer of the prehospital emergency care personnel and the county health officer, and would require the designated officer to notify the prehospital emergency care personnel, if specified criteria are met. The bill would require a county health officer to notify prehospital emergency care personnel immediately if, in addition to existing requirements, the disease or condition has an urgency reporting requirement or the exposure may have included direct contact, as specified, with an infected person's blood. Under certain circumstances, the bill would require specified information about the act's provisions to be posted on the Internet Web sites of those entities and provided during training to personnel, as specified. The bill would require a health facility infection control officer, as defined, and designated officer, as defined, to be available 24 hours per day, as specified.