08/18/08 Committee to Act on EMS, Hospital-Related Legislation
A legislative committee will decide Friday, August 22 whether to forward to the 2009 Legislature several proposed bills related to emergency medical services.  The proposals are the result of a study of emergency medical services (EMS) near completion by the Children, Families, Health, and Human Services Interim Committee.  The committee has been studying EMS after Senate Joint Resolution 5 was approved by the 2007 Legislature,

The committee plans to take up a discussion on the EMS study at 1:00 p.m. on Friday in Room 102 of the Capitol. The public will have an opportunity to comment on the draft bills before the committee decides how to proceed. Any bills approved by the committee will be submitted to the 2009 Legislature for consideration. 

The EMS bills would provide tax incentives for volunteer emergency medical technicians and their employers and would create a grant program to help EMS providers buy vehicles and equipment. They will also hear comment on legislation relative to medical direction and complaint investigation.

Important: Your comments about these bills to the committee are important and can affect next steps.  The draft bills can be viewed on the SJ5 Website.  Additionally, you can download the agenda and other materials and listen to live committee proceedings from the Committee Web Page.

Committee members are Sens. Carol Juneau, D-Browning; Rick Laible, R-Darby; Terry Murphy, R-Cardwell; and Dan Weinberg, D-Whitefish; and Reps. Edith Clark, R-Sweetgrass; Ernie Dutton, R-Billings; and Teresa Henry and Diane Sands, both D-Missoula. For more information, contact Sue O'Connell, legislative committee staffer, at 406-444-3597 or soconnell@mt.gov.

08/15/08 Ambulance Stretcher Warning
Ferno-Washington Inc. has released a "Notice of Investigation" in response to a number of problems reported by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of EMS for the Ferno PROFlexx Model 35-X with serial numbers between 06 002156 and 07 054091 manufactured between January 17, 2006 and August 16, 2007. Massachusetts OEMS has instructed all ambulance services using the stretcher to immediately inspect them for signs of metal fatigue (shavings, bent support arms, cracks, etc,). Ambulance services have been encouraged to remove any stretcher showing signs of metal fatigue from service immediately and to have all Ferno PROFlexx Model 35-X stretchers inspected by a factory authorized representative as soon as possible. The notice does not affect Ferno’s current production line. Additional information, including the Ferno notice, is available on the NASEMSO web site at www.nasemso.org . Ambulance services that experience an equipment failure are reminded to file a “Medical Devices Report” report with the FDA at FDA Medical Device Report web.

08/15/08 POLST Rules Public Hearing - September 3, 2008 at 1:00 p.m.
DPHHS is proposing the adoption of new rules to implement Provider Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST). Modeled after programs implemented in several other states, Montana's Provider Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) form and protocol is necessary to assure that a patient's wishes for life-sustaining treatments are honored by all health care professionals in all health care settings.

The department is proposing the adoption of these rules to reflect that the Board of Medical Examiners has adopted, and the Department has approved, POLST as the protocol for implementing do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders in medical settings. POLST is a comprehensive system that will incorporate both DNR orders as well as wishes for palliative care expressed by the patient in a living will or to the patient's provider. Comfort One will continue to be used to identify patients with a DNR order.

Click here (Word - 60 kb) for the entire public hearing notice. Click here to view the BOME POLST protocol and form adopted by the BOME.

07/01/08 NHTSA Publishes Assessment of National EMS Workforce
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Office of Emergency Medical Services (OEMS) has published EMS Workforce for the 21st Century: A National Assessment (pdf 4.1 MB). NHTSA, in partnership with the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA’s) Emergency Medical Services for Children program, entered into an agreement with the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) to undertake this project. The assessment describes the national EMS workforce and the absence of consistent, nationwide EMS workforce data. It will be paramount in guiding future strategies aimed at assuring the stability of the EMS workforce and in designing national EMS workforce data system improvements. Information on this ongoing project is also available at www.emsworkforce.com.

06/30/08 Legislative Audit Released
On June 20th, the Legislative Audit Committee accepted the EMS audit report. The audit committee also issued a seperate letter to the Children, Families, Health, and Human Services Interim Committee on several issues. Both documents are available below:
     EMS Audit Color - A Report to the Legislature (color pdf version - 3.4 MB)
     EMS Audit BW - (low resolution B&W version - 1.5 MB)
     Memo on EMS Related Issues (pdf - 65 kb)

06/03/2008 - Online PreHospital Information – Licensing (OPHI-L) is here!!     MontanaHIRMS.mt.gov
OPHI-L is deployed and all EMS services are required to utilize the OPHI-L system. OPHI-L is an electronic web based licensing system; which will not only help us manage EMS Service license information more efficiently, it will also allow services to view and update their information at any time.

New Montana EMT License Plate
The Richland County Ambulance Service is pleased to announce the new Montana emergency medical services’ license plate.  Now every EMS person across the state of Montana can proudly display their role as an EMT on their vehicle by purchasing the newly designed license plate.

Visit the Richland County EMS website for more info and an application for the plate.