The Tiger Woods Protection Act?

The Florida House Governmental Affairs Policy Committee will consider a bill that would block the release of 911 tapes and exempt them as public records. The proposal would allow only transcripts of 911 calls, but not the recordings, to be available 60 days after a request. Some are calling the bill the Tiger Woods Protection Act, noting how the November 2009 tapes gained through the state's open government laws lead to embarrassment for the professional golfer.

Under the current law, names, addresses and other identifying information is exempt from release.

Open government advocates say access to the recordings is necessary to gauge whether emergency service providers handle and respond to calls properly and in a timely manner. A 2009 three-part series by the Herald-Tribune shows how access to 911 calls is necessary to reveal systemic flaws by emergency call workers.

For more on the bill, click here.

South Carolina Senate Committee Passes Amendment for Public Access to EMS Workers' Names

The Herald of Rock Hill reports the South Carolina Senate Medical Affairs Committee passed an amendment that would make records of emergency medical calls a part of the public record. The amendment would overturn a provision of S.C. law made at the request of the state Department of Health and Environmental Control that keeps the response times and the names of emergency medical workers private.

Read more here.

University of Mary Washington Refuses to Produce Emergency Test Call Recording

University of Mary Washington's President Judy Hample placed an emergency test call during a campus safety walk to campus police last fall, but the university will not provide the recording of the call to The Free Lance-Star. The University contends the recording relates to a "criminal investigation" on the grounds that Hample's call would have been evidence in any criminal investigation, if there had been such an investigation. The University spokesman says no criminal investigation is on-going.

For more, click here.

Pennsylvania Judge Says Addresses Don't Need to be Released in Emergency Logs

A York County, Pennsylvania judge ruled that the county could refuse to release addresses in emergency time response logs and still comply with the commonwealth's Right-to-Know law. In making his ruling, President Judge Richard K. Renn noted that the citizen's privacy concerns were compelling, particularly in an emergency situation. The York Daily Record/Sunday News requested time response logs in order to audit emergency response times.

Click here for the judge's opinion and here for some community response.

Tightening the EMS Information Laws in South Carolina

Four state legislators from South Carolina have vowed to support a change in state law that would open public access to local EMS data to help improve oversight of those departments. Last month, the S.C. Attorney General's Office said that information regarding EMS operations, including ambulance response times, cannot be made public, citing to patient privacy concerns.

IslandPacket.com reports:

The current law, which took effect five years ago, is "broader than it needs to be," said Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort. "We need to err on the side of transparency in oversight of government."

"There are some legitimate restrictions on data, such as patients' names and specific medical conditions, said Davis, who had not been elected when the law passed. "We have to protect those, but also be careful not to throw the baby out with bath water and provide no transparency. The law needs to be more narrowly drawn."

Get the full story here.

EMS Data Off Limits, According to South Carolina AG Opinion

Ambulance response times and other details on EMS operations can't be made available to the public because of patient privacy concerns, says a recent opinion from the South Carolina Attorney General interpreting a state statute.

The non-binding of the AG has already prompted one state senator, Sen. Harvey Peeler Jr. (R-Cherokee), to draft a new bill that would make much EMS data available to the public.

The AG opinion has also drawn the ire of freedom of information advocates who say ambulance response times is public information vital for oversight of the EMS's system performance.

Read the Island Packet article here.

Individual emergency response records kept private in Ohio

A 1992 Ohio law that overhauled its emergency reporting system also made data on individual fire department's response times private. Response times for medical emergencies now are only reported by county.

You are far more likely to need an ambulance than a firetruck.

But Ohio won't let you see the records that show how fast the paramedics in your community respond to calls.

Since 2002, the Ohio Emergency Medical Services agency has kept track of response time for each medical emergency in the state. But the agency issues a report card only for each county, not for each fire department.

That's because state lawmakers decided to keep individual departments' records -- not just individual patients' records -- from the public eye.

More here.