Bill > A1016

Introduced Session

This bill expands the requirements of current law pertaining to emergency care referrals made during a telemedicine or telehealth encounter. This bill provides that if a health care provider observes a patient experiencing a health care emergency while the patient is engaged in a telemedicine or telehealth encounter, the health care provider is to make a good faith effort to: facilitate contact and coordination with local emergency services; and remain on a synchronous connection with the patient, if the emergency arises during a synchronous connection, until emergency services have reached the patient's location or, in the health care provider's clinical judgment, the situation is resolved. The bill requires health care providers to have a written emergency protocol that is appropriate pursuant to the standard of care. The written emergency protocol is to include good faith methods of enabling the health care provider to facilitate the following, if reasonably feasible: furnishing relevant information known by the provider regarding the patient to emergency services to assist in the deployment of emergency services, including the patient's name and location; attempting to learn the patient's approximate location at the time of the observed emergency, if the patient is not within the patient's primary residence and is unaware of his or her current location; and furnishing the patient's contact information to emergency services if the patient's contact information is known and accessible to the healthcare provider. The bill requires a health care provider to report suicide attempts in accordance with applicable State mandatory reporting laws. The health care provider is to, if appropriate, provide a patient with contact information for the 9-8-8 suicide prevention and behavioral health crisis hotline.

AI Summary

Committee Categories

Clinton Calabrese (D)*,  Nancy Muñoz (R)*,  Chris DePhillips (R),  Greg McGuckin (R), 

Introduced, Referred to Assembly Health Committee (on 01/09/2024)

Official Document