Ambulance Patient Offload Times (APOT) have stretched EMS systems to the breaking point all across the United States. In this timely and important session, national EMS attorney Doug Wolfberg will take a close look at the law and answer the question, "whose patient is it" when an ambulance reaches hospital property, and will discuss unilateral strategies that EMS agencies can employ when hospitals keep ambulance crews for unreasonable periods of time. This session will also address the law related to Emergency Department diversions.

Learning Objectives:
...identify and ddescribe the six basic elements of the EMTALA statute.
....describe when a legal transfer of care from EMS to a hospital ED occurs.
...identify when a hospital's legal duty of care arises under federal law for an incoming EMS patient,