Here in Canada, EMTs and Paramedics are starting to appear in Emergency Departments (EDs) in a few provinces — Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. No surprise, these are the provinces with the lowest paid medics and also have very rural areas and low populations. I can’t speak for their reasons in choosing medics to work in their emergency departments but I speculate it might include a cost-effective alternative to nurses in areas of difficult recruitment. That said, I am aware of paramedics working in downtown Halifax, NS EDs, so who knows.
In any regard, this is a new ‘thing’ but I’ve heard of EMTs and Paramedics working in hospitals throughout the USA for a while now. I’m curious to learn about their role (i.e., how they are utilized alongside but different than nurses), scope of practice (do the paramedics perform skills not within a RNs scope such as operate the ventilators and perform electrocardiographic interpretation), and what agency employs them (I’ve been told the Nova Scotia medics are not hospital employees, rather they are employees of the local EMS service (EHS) operating within the hospital).
My reason for asking is I am interested to see if we can apply this model to other parts of Canada and explore how that might look.
Thank you,
- C
In any regard, this is a new ‘thing’ but I’ve heard of EMTs and Paramedics working in hospitals throughout the USA for a while now. I’m curious to learn about their role (i.e., how they are utilized alongside but different than nurses), scope of practice (do the paramedics perform skills not within a RNs scope such as operate the ventilators and perform electrocardiographic interpretation), and what agency employs them (I’ve been told the Nova Scotia medics are not hospital employees, rather they are employees of the local EMS service (EHS) operating within the hospital).
My reason for asking is I am interested to see if we can apply this model to other parts of Canada and explore how that might look.
Thank you,
- C