Perceived Effectiveness and Utility of Various EMS Credentials

The discipline of emergency medical services (EMS) is a fairly new profession. Since its conception, it has evolved into a complex prehospital delivery system of emergency care providing both basic and advanced life support throughout the country. With the principal guidance of EMS system development and delivery resting with each individual state, EMS has grown into a collection of varying EMS systems across the states. This evolution has led to a wide variance in the structure and delivery of EMS nationwide.One element of that variance is the multiple credentials that exist within the EMS discipline -- principally, the emergency medical technician (EMT), the EMT-Intermediate (EMT-I), and the paramedic. To date, no structured effort has been employed to empirically evaluate the effectiveness and utility of each of the EMS credentials. This dissertation endeavors to explore that concept by quantitatively and qualitatively assessing emergency physicians' perspectives on the effectiveness and utility of EMS credentials.Although there exists a strong preference among emergency physicians to restrict emergency care to paramedics in critical medical and trauma cases, there appears to be an essential role for EMTs in noncomplicated emergencies and for EMT-Is in rural settings. Other findings and explorations relevant to this inquiry are discussed as well.

Author

• Monosky, Keith Anthony

Language

• en

Keyword

• Effectiveness
• Paramedics
• EMS
• Credentials
• Utility
• Prehospital

Date created

• 2010

Type of Work

• Dissertation

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Public Policy & Administration

Degree

• Ph.D.

Advisor

• Newcomer, Kathyrn E.

Committee Member(s)

• Infeld, Donna L.
• Regenstein, Marsha
• Levi, Jeffrey
• Johnson, Jean E.

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/3b591867r