SENATE HEALTH, HUMAN SERVICES AND SENIOR CITIZENS COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

SENATE, No. 4235

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  JANUARY 6, 2022

      The Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee reports favorably Senate Bill No. 4235.

      This bill permits volunteer paramedics to operate within mobile intensive care units.  Volunteer paramedics would be operating as a subunit within an authorized mobile intensive care program operated by a hospital that holds a certificate of need issued by the Department of Health to provide advanced life support services within a specific territorial area.  The volunteer units would operate under the authority of the existing certificate of need, with at least two volunteer paramedics staffing each volunteer unit.  Volunteer paramedics would be authorized to respond to an emergency call using their own personal vehicles, in lieu of a vehicle dispatched from a hospital, and would be permitted to respond either individually or jointly to an emergency dispatch call.  If responding separately, the first member of a volunteer paramedic would be authorized to provide aid prior to the arrival of the second volunteer paramedic.  If the first volunteer paramedic determines that the aid of the second volunteer paramedic is not needed, the first volunteer paramedic would have the authority to cancel the call for the second volunteer paramedic to respond. 

      Members of a volunteer paramedic unit would be required to be dressed professionally and to wear identification that identifies the members as paramedics.  Members of a volunteer paramedic unit would not to be required to respond to an emergency dressed in a uniform issued by the mobile intensive care unit under which they are operating.

      Under current law, as a condition of performing advanced life support services, paramedics are required to maintain direct voice communication with, and take orders from, a licensed physician or a physician-directed registered nurse affiliated with the hospital operating the mobile intensive care program.  The bill revises this requirement to authorize mobile intensive care paramedics to alternatively perform advanced life support services while following a standing order.

      Nothing in the bill will modify or change any current certificates of need issued by the Department of Health to operate a mobile intensive care unit.