Bureau; duties.

The bureau is designated as the lead agency for the emergency medical services system, including injury prevention, and shall establish and maintain a program for regional planning and development, improvement, expansion and direction of emergency medical services throughout the state, including: A. design, development, implementation and coordination of emergency medical services communications systems to join the personnel, facilities and equipment of a given region or system that will allow for medical direction; B. provision of technical assistance to the department of transportation for further development and implementation of standards for certification of ambulance services, vehicles and equipment; C. development of requirements for the collection of data and statistics to evaluate the availability, operation and quality of providers in the state; D. adoption of rules for emergency medical services medical direction upon the recommendation of the medical direction committee; E. approval of continuing education programs for emergency medical services personnel; F. adoption of rules pertaining to the training and licensure of emergency medical dispatchers and their instructors; G. adoption of rules based upon the recommendations of a trauma advisory committee, for implementation and monitoring of a statewide, comprehensive trauma care system, including: (1) minimum standards for designation or retention of designation as a trauma center or a participating trauma facility; (2) pre-hospital care management guidelines for the triage and transportation of traumatized persons; (3) establishment for interfacility transfer criteria and transfer agreements; (4) standards for collection of data relating to trauma system operation, patient outcome and trauma prevention; and (5) creation of a state trauma care plan; H. adoption of rules, based upon the recommendations of the air transport advisory committee, for the certification of air ambulance services; I. adoption of rules pertaining to authorization of providers to honor advance directives, such as emergency medical services do not resuscitate forms, to withhold or terminate care in certain pre-hospital or interfacility circumstances, as guided by local medical protocols; J. operation of a critical incident stress management program for emergency providers utilizing specifically trained volunteers who shall be considered public employees for the purposes of the Tort Claims Act [41-4-1 to 41-4-27 NMSA 1978] when called upon to perform their duties; K. adoption of rules to establish a cardiac arrest targeted response program pursuant to the Cardiac Arrest Response Act [24-10C-1 to 24-10C-7 NMSA 1978], including registration of automated external defibrillator programs, maintenance of equipment, data collection, approval of automated external defibrillator training programs and a schedule of automated external defibrillator program registration fees; L. adoption of rules for the administration of an emergency medical services certification program for certified emergency medical services; and M. promoting, developing, implementing, coordinating and evaluating risk reduction and injury prevention systems.