KBEMS plans to restructure committees

By JOHN HULTGREN
Kentucky EMS Connection

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky Board of EMS plans to substantially reorganize their existing committee structure, focusing more on a regional approach that would allowing greater participation from ambulance service providers while reducing travel requirements.

KBEMS staff member Charles O'Neal presented the plan to the board yesterday at their board meeting in Frankfort.

The plan would create three districts within each of the four state regions. Each district would have an advisory committee composed of management level providers that would meet quarterly. Each district would select individuals to represent them on one of the four regional advisory committees. 

Existing board committees would be restructured into five new committees that would include the:

• Executive Committee
• Provider Committee
• Licensure/Certification Committee
• Medical Standards/Delegated Practice Committee
• Education Committee, and the
• EMS for Children Committee. 

The board could appoint a task force at a committee's request. A task force would be limited to five members and would exist for a specified time.

The restructuring would be accomplished by emergency regulations and could be implemented as early as April 1, with the first district committees meeting in June.

The plan would replace the numerous sub-committees created by board chairman Mark Bailey shortly after the board was formed in late 2000. Many of the sub-committee positions were filled by "street-level" providers.

In other business:

• The board approved a pilot program for the EMT-Intermediate (see related story). The 395-hour course would include 225 hours of classroom study, 75 hours of clinical rotations, and 100 hours of a field internship. The pilot programs would use the U.S.D.O.T. National Standard Curriculum for EMT Intermediates and the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians exam for testing and certification. Courses taught under this pilot program would complete testing by December of this year and state-wide implementation could happen by the first quarter of next year.
• The board approved a new process for excusing absences from board meetings. Board members will now call the chairman who has the discretion to excuse an absence. Apparently the reason for the absence will no longer be announced in public at board meetings. "I find it embarrassing that a person has to explain why they aren't here," said board member David Gray.
       Current statutes make no provision for an excused absence and require board members to miss no more than 3 meetings a year.
• The board adopted the "block grant system" for awarding money from the Matching Grant Fund. It was explained that, in considering the current grant requests, all requests for under $10,000 were approved and those requests for over $10,000 were put into a "pool" and the remaining money was divided by the number of requests in the pool, which calculates to $19,761.36 available for each request in the pool.
       $1.465 million dollars was allocated to the matching grant fund this year. Of that amount, $150,000 is held back for emergencies. By law, money from the grant fund cannot finance more than 50 percent of anything purchased under the grant, and no county can receive more than $25, 500.
• The board approved substitutions for the medications Lasix and Valium due to a current supply shortage. The substitutions for Lasix include 1 mg Pumex or 10 mg of Demadex (tursemide). Ativan (lorazepam) can be substituted for Valium at 0.05 - 0.2 mg/kg for pediatric patients (to a maximum of 4 mg) and a maximum of 4 mg for adults. Because this is an authorized substitution, agency medical protocols will not have to be re-written.
• The board announced that the next Medical Standards Paramedic Scope of Practice Task Force meeting will be next Wednesday, Mar. 13, at 1:00 p.m. EST in the Cabinet for Health Services Distance Learning Center. "The task force needs paramedic representation or the scope will be written by RNs or MDs," said board member Dr. Eric Bentley.
• The board heard from executive director Brian Bishop that the board may be in their own building by August. Because of the delay in moving from temporary office space, provided by the Cabinet for Health Services, into their own building, the cabinet is now asking for a lease agreement.
• The board heard from staff member Ashley Davis that the computer system used to process certifications has been upgraded. The old system was based on Microsoft Access, which can have problems handling large amounts of data. The new system operates on the Microsoft SQL Server platform.
• The board implemented a new complaint system designed for complaints against board staff members. Those complaints would go to the executive committee unless the complaint can be fixed immediately.
• The board approved moving Charles O'Neal and Letch Day to regional administrator positions.

Absent from yesterday's meeting was Mayor Dodd Dixon, who represents mayors operating a Class I ground ambulance service, and Dr. Julia Martin, who represents physicians having a primary practice in the delivery of emergency medical care.

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