The California Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA or EMS Authority) is a government agency of the state of California. The California EMS Authority is one of thirteen divisions of the California Health and Human Services Agency. The director must be a physician with extensive experience in emergency medicine. Elizabeth Basnett is the current interim director.
The mission of the California EMS Authority is to ensure quality patient care by managing an effective statewide system of coordinated emergency medical care, injury prevention, and disaster medical response.
The EMS Authority in California is responsible for paramedic licensing, emergency medical responder regulations, trauma center and system standards, coordination of ambulance services, and disaster medical response.
The EMS Authority operates the EMS Central Registry, a publicly accessible database that provides information on the licensing and certification status of EMTs and paramedics.
The EMS Authority manages the state’s medical response to major disasters. This includes maintaining, staffing and deploying three 200-bed mobile field hospitals, 39 medical disaster support units supplying ambulance strike teams, and three 40-person emergency medical response teams ready to respond to disaster including deployment.
Disaster Healthcare Volunteers is a California-based initiative to pre-register, verify licenses and credentials and mobilize healthcare volunteers. The program has approximately 14,000 participants representing 47 types of professional licenses including physicians, dentists, nurses, paramedics, pharmacists, technicians and so on.
History and background
Paramedic programs were established in California in 1971 as a county option under the Wedworth-Townsend Paramedic Pilot Act (SB 772). Los Angeles County became the first county in California to have paramedics. The popular television show Emergency! demonstrated the potential to improve prehospital care. Paramedic programs were established in several California counties.
Before 1980, responsibility for emergency medical services (EMS) and disaster medical preparedness was spread among several state departments. It became clear that a more integrated approach to emergency medical and disaster services was needed. The Prehospital Emergency Medical Care Personnel and Emergency Medical Services System Act (California Health and Safety Code Section 1797 et seq.) created the Emergency Medical Services Authority in 1980. This legislation (SB 125) was approved several times by local administrators and was the culmination of their efforts to establish a state-led agency and centralized resource to handle emergency and disaster medical services by health care providers, consumer groups, and legislators.
Former directors of the California Emergency Medical Services Authority were: Roger Taylor MD (1981-1982), George Moorhead (acting, 1982-1983), Kenneth Kizer MD (1983-1984), George Moorhead (acting, 1984-1986), Bruce Haynes MD (1986-1989), Daniel Smiley (Acting, 1989-1993), Joseph Morales MD (1993-1997), Richard Watson (Acting, 1997-2005), Cesar Aristeigueta MD (2005-2007) ), Daniel Smiley (Interim 2007). -2008), R. Steven Theratt MD (2008-2010), Daniel Smiley (acting 2010-2011), Howard Bakker MD (2011-2019), Julie Soulier (acting 2019), Dave Duncan MD (2019-2021) , Elizabeth Basnett (2021-present.
Daniel Smiley served as deputy principal and occasionally acting principal for 31 years, from 1989 to 2019.
Role
The EMS Authority is charged with providing leadership in the development and implementation of the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) system throughout California. Day-to-day management of the EMS system in California is a local responsibility. Each county developing an EMS system must designate a local EMS agency (LEMSA). It can be a county health department, an agency established and operated by the county, an entity with which the county contracts for EMS management purposes, or a joint power agency. There are 32 local single-county and multi-county EMS agencies. It is primarily through these agencies that the EMS Authority works to promote quality EMS services throughout the state.
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