Emergency Medical Services

EMS Salary

2009-11-13T23:41:00.000-08:00

Benefits and Salary for EMS Members

People’s lives often depend on the quick reaction and competent care of Emergency Medical Services (EMS), in EMS department there are emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics. Incidents as varied as automobile accidents, heart attacks, slips and falls, childbirth, and gunshot wounds all require immediate medical attention. EMTs and paramedics provide this vital service as they care for and transport the sick or injured to a medical facility.

The median expected salary for a typical Paramedic in the United States is $38,523. This basic market pricing report was prepared using our Certified Compensation Professionals' analysis of survey data collected from thousands of HR departments at employers of all sizes, industries and geographies.

EMT Salary Information

EMT Salary:	Base
Starting Salary	$31,931
After 1 Year	$33,740
After 2 Years	$34.341
After 3 Years	$39,764
After 5 Years	$45,834

Paramedic Salary Information

Paramedic Salary:	Base
Starting Salary	$43,690
After 1 Year	$48,127
After 2 Years	$50,091
After 3 Years	$55,255
After 5 Years	$59.079

Medical Emergency

2009-11-08T19:15:00.000-08:00

MEDICAL EMERGENCY

A medical emergency is an injury or illness that is acute and poses an immediate risk to a person's life or long term health. A medical emergency is any sudden illness or injury that is perceived to be a crisis threatening the physical or psychological well-being of person or group.These emergencies may require assistance from another person, who should ideally be suitably qualified to do so, although some of these emergencies can be dealt with by the victim themselves. Dependent on the severity of the emergency, and the quality of any treatment given, it may require the involvement of multiple levels of care, from a first aider to an emergency physician through to specialist surgeons. To help you decide what a critical situation is, here are some examples: unconsciousness, a suspected stroke, heavy blood loss, suspected broken bones, a deep wound such as a stab wound, a suspected heart attack, difficulty in breathing, severe burns, and a severe allergic reaction.

Response

For emergencies starting outside of medical care, a key component of providing proper care is to summon the emergency medical services (usually an ambulance), by calling for help using the appropriate local emergency telephone number, such as 999, 911, 112, 000, 118 (Jakarta), 777 (Kuwait) or 111. After determining that the incident is a medical emergency (as opposed to, for example, a police call), the emergency dispatchers will generally run through a questioning system such as AMPDS in order to assess the priority level of the call, along with the caller's name and location.

Those trained to perform first aid can act within the bounds of the knowledge they have, whilst awaiting the next level of definitive care. Those who are not able to perform first aid can also assist by remaining calm and staying with the injured or ill person. A common complaint of emergency service personnel is the propensity of people to crowd around the scene of victim, as it is generally unhelpful, making the patient more stressed, and obstructing the smooth working of the emergency services. If possible, first responders should designate a specific person to ensure that the emergency services are called. Another bystander should be sent to wait for their arrival and direct them to the proper location. Additional bystanders can be helpful in ensuring that crowds are moved away from the ill or injured patient, allowing the responder adequate space to work.

Many states of the USA have "Good Samaritan laws" which protect civilian responders who choose to assist in an emergency. Responders acting within the scope of their knowledge and training as a "reasonable person" in the same situation would act are often immune to liability in emergency situations. Usually, once care has begun, a first responder or first aid provider may not leave the patient or terminate care until a responder of equal or higher training (e.g., fire department or emergency medical technicians) assumes care. This can constitute abandonment of the patient, and may subject the responder to legal liability. Care must be continued until the patient is transferred to a higher level of care, the situation becomes too unsafe to continue, or the responder is physically unable to continue due to exhaustion or hazards.

The principles of the chain of survival apply to medical emergencies where the patient has an absence of breathing and heartbeat. This involves the four stages of Early access, Early CPR, Early defibrillation and Early advanced life support

Unless the situation is particularly hazardous, and is likely to further endanger the patient, evacuating an injured victim requires special skills, and should be left to the professionals of the emergency medical and fire service.

Clinical response

Within hospital settings, an adequate staff is generally present to deal with the average emergency situation. Emergency medicine physicians have training to deal with most medical emergencies, and maintain CPR and ACLS certifications. In disasters or complex emergencies, most hospitals have protocols to summon on-site and off-site staff rapidly.

Both emergency room and inpatient medical emergencies follow the basic protocol of Advanced Cardiac Life Support. Irrespective of the nature of the emergency, adequate blood pressure and oxygenation are required before the cause of the emergency can be eliminated. Possible exceptions include the clamping of arteries in severe hemorrhage.

Non-trauma emergencies

While the golden hour (medicine) is a trauma treatment concept, two emergency medical conditions have well-documented time-critical treatment considerations: stroke and myocardial infarction (heart attack). In the case of stroke, there is a window of three hours within which the benefit of clot-busting drugs outweighs the risk of major bleeding. In the case of a heart attack, rapid stabilization of fatal arrhythmias can prevent sudden cardiac death. In addition, there is a direct relationship between time-to-treatment and the success of reperfusion (restoration of blood flow to the heart), including a time dependent reduction in the mortality and morbidity.

Health science, Medicine and Emergency medicine

Procedures	Acute Care of at-Risk Newborns (ACoRN) · Advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) · Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) · Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) · First aid · Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) · Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS)

Equipment	Bag valve mask (BVM) · Chest tube · Defibrillation (AED, ICD) · Electrocardiogram (ECG/EKG) · Intraosseous infusion (IO) · Intravenous therapy (IV) · Intubation · Nasopharyngeal airway (NPA) · Oropharyngeal airway (OPA) · Pocket mask

Drugs	Atropine · Amiodarone · Epinephrine/Adrenaline · Magnesium · Bicarbonate · Naloxone

what is EMS?

2009-06-07T08:10:00.000-07:00

EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES

Emergency medical services (abbreviated to the initialism "EMS" in some countries) are a branch of emergency services dedicated to providing out-of-hospital acute medical care and/or transport to definitive care, to patients with illnesses and injuries which the patient, or the medical practitioner, believes constitutes a medical emergency.

Emergency medical services may also be locally known as: first aid squad, emergency squad, rescue squad, ambulance squad, ambulance service, ambulance corps or life squad.

The goal of most emergency medical services is to either provide treatment to those in need of urgent medical care, with the goal of satisfactorily treating the malady, or arranging for timely removal of the patient to the next point of definitive care. This is most likely an emergency department at a hospital or another place where physicians are available. The term Emergency Medical Service evolved to reflect a change from a simple transportation system (ambulance service) to a system in which actual medical care occurred in addition to transportation. In some developing regions, the term is not used, or may be used inaccurately, since the service in question does not provide treatment to the patients, but only the provision of transport to the point of care.

In most places in the world, the EMS is summoned by members of the public (or other emergency services, businesses or authority) via an emergency telephone number which puts them in contact with a control facility, which will then dispatch a suitable resource to deal with the situation. For emergencies starting outside of medical care, a key component of providing proper care is to summon the emergency medical services (usually an ambulance), by calling for help using the appropriate local emergency telephone number, such as 999, 911, 112, 000, 118 (Jakarta), 777 (Kuwait) or 111.

In some parts of the world, the term EMS also encompasses services developed to move patients from one medical facility to an alternative one; inferring transfer to a higher level of care. In such services, the EMS is not summoned by members of the public but by clinical professionals (eg. physicians or nurses) in the referring facility. Specialized hospitals that provide higher levels of care may include services such as neonatal intensive care (NICU), pediatric intensive care (PICU), state regional burn centers, specialized care for spinal injury and/or neurosurgery, regional stroke centers, specialized cardiac care (cardiac catherization), and specialized/regional trauma care.

In some jurisdictions, EMS units may handle technical rescue operations such as extrication, water rescue, and search and rescue. Training and qualification levels for members and employees of emergency medical services vary widely throughout the world. In some systems, members may be present who are qualified only to drive the ambulance, with no medical training. In contrast, most systems have personnel who retain at least basic first aid certifications, such as (Basic Life Support (BLS)). Additionally many EMS systems are staffed with Advanced Life Support (ALS) personnel, including paramedics, nurses, or, less commonly, physicians.