Terms Used In Louisiana Revised Statutes 37:1331

  • Perfusion: means the functions necessary for the support, treatment, measurement, or supplementation of the cardiovascular, circulatory, respiratory systems or other organs, or a combination of those activities, and to ensure the safe management of physiologic functions by monitoring and analyzing the parameters:

    (a)  The use of extracorporeal circulation, long-term cardiopulmonary support techniques, including extracorporeal carbon dioxide removal and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and associated therapeutic and diagnostic techniques. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 37:1333

A.  The legislature finds that the practice of perfusion by qualified individuals is necessary to protect the public health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of this state.  The purpose and legislative intent of this Part is to encourage and promote the more effective utilization of the skills of physicians by enabling them to delegate certain health-related procedures to medical technologists who are licensed to practice perfusion when the delegation is consistent with the health and welfare of the patient.

B.  The legislature further finds that it is in the public interest that the practice of perfusion should be regulated.

C.  Therefore, it is the legislative intent and the purpose of this Part to promote, preserve, and protect the public health, safety, and welfare by regulating the practice of perfusion and ensuring that any individual practicing or offering to practice perfusion or using the title “perfusionist” shall be licensed before engaging in such practice.

Acts 2003, No. 811, §1, eff. July 1, 2003.