Healthcare
Emergency medical services
California requires emergency 911 medical call centers to give callers prearrival care instructions and report any missed deadline.
Callers can receive immediate guidance for life-threatening emergencies before paramedics arrive. Agencies that were not providing these instructions by January 1, 2027, must disclose their compliance status to local EMS agencies.
What the law does
- Requires public safety agencies processing 911 medical-response calls to provide instructions for choking, CPR and AED use, childbirth, severe bleeding, epinephrine auto-injectors, and naloxone by January 1, 2027.
- Allows an agency to meet the requirement by contracting with another public safety agency that provides the instructions.
- Requires local EMS agency medical-director approval of the instructions and consistency with the agency's medical protocols.
- Requires agencies that missed the January 1, 2027 deadline to report their compliance status to their local EMS agency by January 31, 2027.
- Exempts agencies already providing local-EMS-approved prearrival instructions and clarifies that dispatching peace officers alone does not make an agency a medical-response call processor.
Who it affects
- Public safety agencies that process 911 calls for emergency medical response.
- Local EMS agencies and their medical directors.
- People calling 911 for medical emergencies.