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Texas Statutes (Last Updated: January 4, 2014) |
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HEALTH AND SAFETY CODE |
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Title 9. SAFETY |
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Subtitle B. EMERGENCIES |
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Chapter 773. EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES |
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Subchapter A. GENERAL PROVISIONS |
Sec. 773.003. DEFINITIONS
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In this chapter:
(1) "Advanced life support" means emergency prehospital care that uses invasive medical acts.
(2) "Basic life support" means emergency prehospital care that uses noninvasive medical acts.
(3) "Board" means the Texas Board of Health.
(4) "Bureau" means the department's bureau of emergency management.
(5) "Bureau chief" means the chief of the bureau of emergency management.
(6) "Commissioner" means the commissioner of health.
(7) "Department" means the Department of State Health Services.
(8) "Emergency medical services" means services used to respond to an individual's perceived need for immediate medical care and to prevent death or aggravation of physiological or psychological illness or injury.
(9) "Emergency medical services and trauma care system" means an arrangement of available resources that are coordinated for the effective delivery of emergency health care services in geographical regions consistent with planning and management standards.
(10) "Emergency medical services personnel" means:
(A) emergency care attendant;
(B) emergency medical technicians;
(C) emergency medical technicians--intermediate;
(D) emergency medical technicians--paramedic; or
(E) licensed paramedic.
(11) "Emergency medical services provider" means a person who uses or maintains emergency medical services vehicles, medical equipment, and emergency medical services personnel to provide emergency medical services.
(12) "Emergency medical services vehicle" means:
(A) a basic life-support emergency medical services vehicle;
(B) an advanced life-support emergency medical services vehicle;
(C) a mobile intensive-care unit; or
(D) a specialized emergency medical services vehicle.
(13) "Emergency medical services volunteer" means emergency medical services personnel who provide emergency prehospital care without remuneration, except reimbursement for expenses.
(14) "Emergency medical services volunteer provider" means an emergency medical services provider that has at least 75 percent of its total personnel as volunteers and is recognized as a Section 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation by the Internal Revenue Service.
(15) "Emergency prehospital care" means care provided to the sick or injured before or during transportation to a medical facility, and includes any necessary stabilization of the sick or injured in connection with that transportation.
(15-a) "Executive commissioner" means the executive commissioner of the Health and Human Services Commission.
(16) "First responder organization" means a group or association of certified emergency medical services personnel that, working in cooperation with a licensed emergency medical services provider, provides immediate on-scene care to ill or injured persons but does not transport those persons.
(17) "Governmental entity" means a county, municipality, school district, or special district or authority created in accordance with the Texas Constitution.
(18) "Medical supervision" means direction given to emergency medical services personnel by a licensed physician under Subtitle B, Title 3, Occupations Code, and the rules adopted under that subtitle by the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners.
Text of subsec. (19) as amended by Acts 1991, 72nd Leg., ch. 605, Sec. 1
(19) "Trauma facility" means a health care facility that is capable of comprehensive treatment of seriously injured persons and is a part of an emergency medical services and trauma care system.
Text of subsec. (19) as amended by Acts 1991, 72nd Leg., ch. 853, Sec. 3
(19) "Emergency medical care" means bona fide emergency services provided after the sudden onset of a medical or traumatic condition manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity, including severe pain, such that the absence of immediate medical attention could reasonably be expected to result in:
(A) placing the patient's health in serious jeopardy;
(B) serious impairment to bodily functions; or
(C) serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part.
(20) "Trauma patient" means a critically injured person who has been:
(A) evaluated by a physician, a registered nurse, or emergency medical services personnel; and
(B) found to require medical care in a trauma facility.
(21) [Blank].
(22) "Trauma services" includes services provided to a severely or seriously injured patient who has a principal diagnosis listed in the Injuries and Poisonings Chapter of the International Classification of Diseases, Clinical Modification.