Early ambulance services
While civilian communities had organized ways to deal with the care and transportation of the sick and dying as far back as the bubonic plague in London between 1598 and 1665, such arrangements were typically temporary. In time however, these arrangement began to formalize and become permanent. During the American Civil War, Jonathan Letterman devised a system of mobile field hospitals employing the first uses of the principles of triage. After returning home, some veterans began to attempt to apply what they had seen on the battlefield to their own communities, and commenced the creation of volunteer life-saving squads and ambulance corps.
Continue reading... | Comments (128)Evolution and Growth
Throughout the 1970s and 80s, the paramedics field continued to evolve, with a shift in emphasis from patient transport to treatment both on scene and en route to hospitals. This led to some services changing their descriptions from “ambulance services” “to emergency medical services”.
Continue reading... | Comments (256)Structure of Employment
Paramedics are employed by a variety of different organizations and the services provided by paramedics occur under different organizational structures depending on the part of the world. A new and evolving role for paramedics involves the expansion of their practice into the provision of relatively basic primary health care and assessment services.
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