Bill would triple the amount of continuing education needed for recertification

By JOHN HULTGREN
Kentucky EMS Connection

FRANKFORT — A Senate bill intended to make certain emergency medical technicians eligible for the Kentucky firefighter training supplement may also triple the number of continuing education hours required for recertifying EMTs.

Senate Bill 142, introduced Tuesday by Senator Dan Seum of Jefferson County and assigned to the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee today, would amend KRS 95A.260 to include emergency medical technicians and paramedics serving in a city of the first class or in a charter county government in the Firefighters Foundation Program fund. It would also amend KRS 311A.020 to require EMTs to meet the certification and recertification requirements of the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians.

Kentucky currently requires a minimum of 24 continuing education hours every two years for EMT-Basic recertification, and requires a minimum of 60 continuing education hours every two years for EMT-Paramedic relicensing.

NREMT requires 72 continuing education hours every two years for both classifications.

In 2000, House Bill 312 reduced the number of continuing education hours required for EMTs from 72 to the current 24. The bill's sponsor, former Rep. Jim Callahan, said at the time that Kentucky lost 1,900 EMTs in the previous year because volunteer EMTs did not have the time to meet the recertification commitment.

The proposed number of EMT recertification continuing education hours would exceed those required for most physicians and nurses in Kentucky.

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