Medication administration by EMT or Paramedic

[eurocopter]

Hi guys!

I'm researching about some medicine administrations by non-medical staff.
In my Country al medicines and advanced life support are given by doctors and nurses. Economical crisis is forcing a change in management, and probably in a few years EMTs and paramedics will be the only staff on Emergency Medical Services.

I'd like to know in which services are you giving medications (specilly aspirine durin Acute Coronary Syndrome), and which are your rules, protocoles and supervision.

Thanks a lot.

 

[JPINFV]

In the United States, EMTs (about 140 hours of training) and paramedics (about 1000 hours of training) routinely give medications. For EMTs, the medications administered is often limited to oxygen, but it varies by jurisdiction. Outside of oxygen, the medications allowed most often is ASA for ACS, epinephrine (via autoinjector) for anaphylaxis, and nebulized albuterol for asthma and other reactive airway disorders. Besides those, most jurisdictions also allow EMTs to "assist" patients with the patient's prescribed nitroglycerin, albuterol inhaler, or epinephrine autoinjector.

Paramedics, in general, have a range of cardiac medications, pain control, and other assorted emergency medications (e.g. naloxone, diphenhydramine, etc). This can include, depending on the jurisdiction, medications for rapid sequence induction to facilitate intubation.

Medical control over the administration of these medications range from comprehensive standing orders to having the paramedic call into a base station and receive permission from a nurse or physician (again, location dependent) prior to administering the specific medication.

 

[eurocopter]

re:

thnks a lot!
And what about aspirine?

 

[JPINFV]

The trade name for Aspirin is "acetylsalicylic acid," which is often abbreviated to "ASA."

 

[Shishkabob]

I'm researching about some medicine administrations by non-medical staff.

Wait, what? In what country (that has Paramedics) is a Paramedic not a medical provider?

I'd like to know in which services are you giving medications (specilly aspirine durin Acute Coronary Syndrome), and which are your rules, protocoles and supervision.

In MY country, they typically trust Paramedics to make the proper decision at what to give and when, and "supervision" only takes place if something goes wrong, or it's a high risk, low frequency procedure, such as RSI, aside from the usual QA/QI.

A Paramedic, atleast in Texas, typically has access to over 50-70 different medications on an ambulance at any one time, so it's hard to really dive any deeper in to specifics.

 

[JPINFV]

Wait, what? In what country (that has Paramedics) is a Paramedic not a medical provider?

Pedantically speaking, a "medical provider" would be one who practices medicine, thus being limited to physicians.

In serious terms, some countries don't have paramedics, instead relying on physicians and nurses to provide prehospital care.

 

[Shishkabob]

Pedantically speaking, a "medical provider" would be one who practices medicine, thus being limited to physicians.

Then nurses would not be included in his original post.

In serious terms, some countries don't have paramedics, instead relying on physicians and nurses to provide prehospital care.

Which is why I stated "In countries that have Paramedics".

 

[Handsome Robb]

Paramedics all over the US give a multitude of medications. Some are not "risky" so to speak, others, such as paralytics used for RSI procedures completely put the airway and thus the life of the patient into that paramedics hands.

Yes paramedics give aspirin. The vollunteer OEC ski patrollers I worked with last year who have <100 hours of training carried and administered aspirin.