Emergency Medical Services

Whenever used in this chapter, unless the context otherwise provides:

• “Advanced life support” or “ALS” means initiating basic life support care as well as physician-authorized invasive patient care designed to stabilize and support a patient’s condition due to sudden illness or injury. The care rendered, excluding basic life support, constitutes the practice of medicine.
• “Advanced life support personnel” or “ALS personnel” means individuals currently certified by the state board of medical examiners as Mobile Intensive Care Technicians or MICTs.
• “Ambulance” means any privately or publicly owned ground motor vehicle, watercraft, or aircraft that is specially designed or constructed, equipped pursuant to section 11-72-29 intended to be used for and maintained or operated for the transportation of patients with medical conditions unable to use other means of transportation, except any such ground motor vehicle, watercraft, or aircraft owned or operated under the direct control of the United States.
• “Ambulance service” means the business or regular activity, whether for profit or not, of transporting either emergency or nonemergency sick, injured, or otherwise medically or psychologically incapacitated individuals by ambulances staffed by BLS or ALS personnel.
• “Basic life support” or “BLS” means initiating noninvasive emergency patient care designed to optimize the patient’s chances of surviving the emergency situation. The care rendered consists of all first-aid procedures needed, but does not include invasive procedures or other procedures which constitute the practice of medicine.
• “Basic life support personnel” or “BLS personnel” means individuals currently certified by the state board of medical examiners as Emergency Medical Technicians or EMTs. “Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation” or “CPR” means an emergency first-aid procedure that consists of opening and maintaining a patient’s airway, ventilating the patient, and providing artificial circulation by means of external cardiac compression, as indicated.
• “Communications system” means all equipment, personnel, and procedures established and operated to provide a means for accepting calls for emergency medical services, for dispatching and coordinating emergency medical personnel and vehicles, and for conducting medical communications, such as that between emergency medical services personnel and a licensed physician in a hospital emergency room approved by the. director.
• “Director” means the director of health or the designated representative of the director of health.
• “Disaster situation” includes “mass casualties”, “national emergency”, “natural disaster”, or person-caused disaster.
• “Emergency ambulance call” means a request that is not prearranged for assistance requiring an ambulance unit to be dispatched to provide immediate prehospital medical care to each patient who is sick, injured, or otherwise medically or psychologically incapacitated.
• “Emergency medical services” or “EMS” means the services utilized in responding to a perceived need for immediate medical care in order to prevent loss of life or aggravation of physiological or psychological sickness, injury, or incapacitating condition.
• “Mass casualties” means so many persons being injured, incapacitated, made ill, or killed that ordinary resources for emergency treatment are strained beyond capacity.
• “Medical attendant” means a State of Hawaii licensed physician, State of Hawaii licensed registered nurse, state certified BLS personnel, or state certified ALS personnel.
• “Medical direction off-line” means a system of medical support which includes the review and monitoring of prehospital emergency services,. this support being provided by physicians experienced in the conduct and the delivery of prehospital emergency medical services.
• “Medical direction on-line” means advice, assistance, supervision, and control provided from a state designated regional medical facility staffed by emergency physicians supplying professional support through radio, telephonic, or any written or oral communication for on-site and in- transit basic and advanced life support services given by prehospital field personnel.
• “Person-caused disaster” means accidents caused by persons including, but not limited to fire, explosion, radiation, and hazardous material spills that result in hazard, illness, injury, or death to large numbers of citizens, or that presents a potential for such hazard, illness, injury, or death.
• “Phased emergency response system” means the equipment, supplies, medications, transportation, personnel, and procedures arranged to provide the coordinated delivery of prehospital emergency medical services by identified private individuals, public safety personnel, and state and private and other agencies in a timely pattern that progresses from the CPR or first aid trained individual to more advanced levels of emergency medical care in order to provide a continuum of emergency medical care to a patient, from the time of occurrence of an emergency incident until admission for treatment in the emergency room or medical facility.
• “State comprehensive prehospital emergency medical services system” means the state program established to provide for the arrangement of personnel, facilities, and equipment for the effective and coordinated delivery of health care services under emergency conditions throughout the State, whether occurring as a result of a patient’s condition or of natural disasters or other causes. The state comprehensive medical services system is designed to provide services on the islands of Oahu, Hawaii, Kauai, Maui Lanai, and Molokai.

[Eff. AUG 12 1985] (Auth: HRS §§321-223, 321-233) ( Imp: HRS §§321-222, 321-223, 321-226, 321-228, 321-233)