(a) If a facility provides emergency care services, those services must be available 24 hours a day and must include
- (1) a determination by trained staff of whether a person entering the service should receive a medical, psychological, or social evaluation;
- (2) treatment of acute and potentially life-threatening disorders; and
- (3) supervision of medically ill persons by trained medical staff.
- (b) Guidelines for care of persons with mental or emotional problems must be present and readily accessible in the emergency room.
- (c) Guidelines or protocol for the treatment of and referral for substance abuse must be present and readily accessible in the emergency room.
- (d) A roster of names and telephone numbers of physicians, specialty consultants, poison control centers, and referral resources must be maintained in the emergency room.
(e) The emergency care service must maintain a control register which contains, for each person served,
- (1) the person's name, or adequate identification;
- (2) the date and time of arrival;
- (3) an emergency record number for the person;
- (4) the nature of the person's complaint;
- (5) disposition; and
- (6) time of and condition on departure.
(f) The emergency medical record must contain for each patient
- (1) adequate identification of the patient;
- (2) the time of and means by which the patient arrived, including by whom transported;
- (3) pertinent history of the patient's current condition;
- (4) diagnosis and treatment given;
- (5) condition of the patient on discharge or transfer; and
- (6) final disposition, including instructions given to the patient or the patient's family regarding necessary followup care.
(g) The emergency care service must have a written plan, developed in cooperation with members of the community served, which specifies how it will deal with an extreme emergency in the community. The plan must include a triage process which describes the methods for the
- (1) marshalling of resources to deal with the emergency;
- (2) determination of the level of urgency of each case; and
- (3) determination of appropriate services to be performed.
- (h) The emergency care service must have available a communication system to maintain contact with the police department, rescue squads, and other emergency services of the community.
- (i) A critical access hospital shall, at a minimum, ensure that a physician or mid-level practitioner with training or experience in emergency care is on call and immediately available by telephone or radio contact and available on site within 30 minutes on a 24-hours per day basis.
- (j) A frontier extended stay clinic is exempt from the requirements of this section.
(Eff. 11/19/83, Register 88; am 9/1/2000, Register 155; am 12/3/2006, Register 180)
Authority: AS 18.05.040, AS 47.32.010, AS 47.32.030