Telemedicine for emergency responses coming to county

By JP Crumrine
Correspondent

At its Sept. 12 meeting, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an initial three-year contract with TELE911 that will allow the county’s emergency response agencies real-time telemedicine evaluation. Several months ago, in response to a county jury report on hospital transfer time, the county Emergency Medical Services Agency (EMS) promised to submit a telemedicine proposal.

Low-acuity patients and patients who refuse ambulance transport to an emergency department and may be at high-risk if they are not transported may benefit.

“In addition, through TELE911, EMS desires to maximize EMS resource availability and improve [Emergency Department] bed capacity in Riverside County by properly referring medically triaged lower acuity 911 calls and linking patients to a variety of resources when safe and appropriate … It has been shown in multiple published research studies that a significant percentage of EMS patients transported to a hospital ED may be safely treated in place through an approved telemedicine program,” EMS said in its recommendation to the board.

Although unanimously approved, telemedicine will not be immediately available. Dan Bates, deputy EMS coordinator for the county, explained that each of the county’s emergency response agencies has to develop its own separate agreement with TELE911. For example, each city within the county, as well as Riverside County, must reach an agreement with TELE911. However, he did not think this would be a significant delay.

“This will give us options for individuals’ safety,” he added.

During the discussion of this item, 3rd District Supervisor Chuck Washington said, “I’m really excited about the progress we’re making … Riverside County is taking innovative steps to prevent long wall time and get our ambulance and firefighter paramedics back into the streets.”

Since March 2022, TELE911 has been providing telemedicine services. Besides California, it also operates in Florida and Texas, Brad Bihun, operations manager for TELE911, said. Within the state, Alameda and Kern are the only other California counties to use this option for emergency calls.

County EMS officials have been concerned about the care for patients and the ability to respond to timely emergency situations. A county grand jury report also spoke to these issues.

In May, the grand jury reported about the time it takes to transfer a patient from the ambulance to the hospital’s care.

The grand jury focused on the delay it takes to officially transfer patients to hospital care after the ambulance arrives at the hospital. It is not unusual for this transfer to take more than 30 minutes. It happens enough that the EMS administrators have officially named it Ambulance Patient Off–

See Telemedicine, page A6