Paramedic Communications Systems (PCS)

Overview

Currently pre hospital on-line medical control is provided by 20 acute care hospitals. Two (2) of these hospitals are operated by the Health Services (Health Services). Staff providing on-line medical control is employed by the hospitals under the direction of the Pre-hospital Care Coordinator (nurse) and a Medical Director (physician). In calendar year 2011, the base hospitals handled 236,000 contacts. In addition to field medical control, the hospital staff is also responsible for continuing medical education and quality assurance.

The communication equipment used for medical control is purchased, installed and maintained by the participating hospitals. Except for a few exceptions all hospitals are assigned a primary communication channel and a back up. In addition, hospitals provide a minimum of two telephone lines to be used for paramedic access. Due to the Los Angeles topography some hospitals must maintain remote radio sites to provide communication to some outlying field units. These remote sites are connected to the base hospital using leased lines, leased by the base hospitals.

Los Angeles County maintains a network of high remote radio sites that are available to extend local hospital communications when necessary. The county‘s back haul circuits (i.e. fiber, microwave) interfaces with the hospital lease lines at local county buildings. The county remote radio sites along with the circuits are maintained by the Los Angeles County Internal Services Department (ISD).

Narrow Banding

On November 19, 2012, EMS completed the migration of all the Medical Channels at the remote radios sites and County Operated Hospitals from wide band to narrow band. The channel previously called Med 9 is now called Med 10. The frequency pairs (462.975/467.975) and CTCSS tone of 203.5 remain the same.

For more information please contact  (562) 347-1629

Interoperability

Los Angeles County EMS has been an active participant in interoperability planning for many years as members of the executive and technical committees of the Los Angeles Regional Tactical Radio System LARTCS and the Los Angeles Regional Interoperability Communication System LARICS. EMS intends to migrate the paramedic communication system into LARICS when the system becomes operational.

Additional Information

Base Hospital Directory
Remote Radio Sites Map
Medical Channel Protocols
Medical Channel Assignments
Paramedic Communications Policy 716