Standards and Standardization in Paramedic Protocols
Paramedicine · 2003-01-01 · Guideline / consensus
Abstract
Patient care protocols have been introduced into emergency pre-hospital care gradually over the last four decades in various ways.While protocols were initially designed to allow a move towards greater indirect medical oversight of paramedic-based emergency ambulance care, the formats, standards and content of such protocols have all developed independently.In the early days, providing avenues for the development of different formats of protocols, and even variations in content, resulted in differences in standards of the care provided by paramedics.This was to be expected.Therefore, the development of different paramedic systems led to varying standards of care in different pre-hospital emergency medical communities and in different countries.Such care has varied from basic first aid to advanced first aid provided by ambulance-based first responders, up to delegated medical acts that some critical care trained paramedics perform.