South Carolina Mortgage Information

South Carolina is the only state among eight in the Southeast to have a law that explicitly forbids public access to data on EMS operations -- information that allows for oversight of emergency systems.

One national EMS official said he knows of no other state in the country that is as restrictive as South Carolina regarding public access to EMS data.

Skip Kirkwood, president-elect of the National EMS Management Association, called South Carolina's law "bizarre."

"I'm just appalled by it," he said.

Kirkwood, who also serves as a chief in the EMS system for Wake County, N.C., said his department posts response-time information and other operational data on its Web site.

"We work for the citizens," Kirkwood said. "They're entitled to know what kind of job we do for them. One of the reasons we have a good system is because we have lots of resources. We have lots of resources because citizens like us. Citizens like us because we tell them what we do."

PUBLIC LOCKED OUT IN SC

The South Carolina law restricting EMS information took effect about five years ago, but didn't become an issue until The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette requested ambulance response-time information from Beaufort County EMS. In the past year -- since county EMS was criticized for mishandling a call involving a severely beaten Bluffton resident -- the department has come under scrutiny.

The county denied the request for information and asked the S.C. Attorney General whether it was required to release the data. On Aug. 19, the Attorney General issued an opinion that said the law states such information can't be released to the public.

A review of eight states in the Southeast found that although state laws vary on the amount of information that can be released, none appear to have laws as restrictive as South Carolina's.

Kirkwood said Wake County's response times, 911 call recordings, ambulance dispatch and incident location information are all available for public review.

The names of paramedics responding to calls in North Carolina are also public information, he said. South Carolina law says paramedics' names must be kept confidential.

Alabama and Mississippi say they also do not keep the names of paramedics responding to emergencies secret and take extra measures to assess the responders' performance.

In a quarterly newsletter, Alabama's Department of Health lists paramedics who have disciplinary actions against them, according to Hugh Hollen of that state's Office of EMS and Trauma.

"They know if you mess up, you might get embarrassed," Hollen said of the publication.

Hollen said Alabama releases response times and other data "as long as it protects patients' names."

"The basis of us collecting data is to use it to help the EMS community and the public," he said. "We're collecting data to hopefully make EMS better -- anything we can do to shed light on them."

Mississippi's State Department of Health compiles an annual list of all its licensed paramedics. It includes the procedures each person performed that year, according to Jim Craig, the state's director of health protection.

For example, the report indicates how many intubations or resuscitations each paramedic performed. The reports, which help officials focus paramedics' training in areas where they're less experienced, are available for public review, he said.

Information that can't be released to the public, as outlined by federal patient privacy laws, includes patients' names, medical histories and the treatment they received, Craig said.

West Virginia allows local agencies to release EMS data as they see fit, according to Deron Wilkes, chief of operations for the state's Office of Emergency Medical Services.

'A BIT OUT THERE'

Wilkes said he was surprised by South Carolina's restrictive law and the Attorney General's opinion on it.

"It shocked me ... that response times are protected because you might be able to find out who the patient is," Wilkes said.

West Virginia does not have such a law, he said.

Virginia also does not have laws specifically governing the release of EMS data, said Elizabeth Singer, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health's EMS division.

"We just follow HIPAA guidelines," Singer said, referring to the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which prevents the release of confidential patient data.

Response times would be available for public review "because it's not medical information," she said. She said data may be released "as long as it can't specifically identify a patient."

Joye Burton, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Community Health, said in an e-mail that state laws there restrict information that relates to patient care. She said 911 dispatch records, including response times, are available to the public.

Florida's law restricts the release of paramedics' names, said Steve McCoy, reporting manager for the Florida Department of Health Bureau of EMS.

Among the more restrictive states in the Southeast on EMS data, Florida allows public access only to "aggregate-level data," McCoy said. For example, a department could provide the total number of calls it responded to in a month, but not a list of those calls, he said.

According to the S.C. Attorney General's opinion, even aggregate-level data are restricted in South Carolina. The opinion, while not binding like a judge's ruling, carries weight because it's an official interpretation of a state statute by legal experts in the Attorney General's Office.

Beaufort County Administrator Gary Kubic said last month it is unnecessary for information about EMS operations to be accessible to the public. County officials review the data themselves, he said, and that should be sufficient to detect any problems that might exist.

Kirkwood, of the National EMS Management Association, an EMS professional for 33 years, doesn't buy that.

"Restricting operational data as a matter of policy? That's a bit out there for me."