We proudly offer three EMS courses from the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT). These courses aim to strengthen the skillset and expertise of emergency medical service professionals.
Advanced Medical Life Support (AMLS)
NAEMT’s Advanced Medical Life Support (AMLS) course is the first EMS education program that fully addresses how to best assess and manage the most common medical crises in patients, offering a “think outside the box” methodology. It is for all levels of practitioners with a strong commitment to patient care, including emergency medical technicians, paramedics, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse anesthetists and physicians.
The course emphasizes the use of scene size-up, history, interactive group discussion on potential treatment strategies, and physical exams to systematically rule out and consider possibilities and probabilities in treating patients’ medical crises. The course offers an initial assessment-based approach that progresses to a diagnostic-based approach to quickly develop the best treatment plan.
AMLS is a sixteen-hour, two-day program that consists of interactive lectures, teaching and evaluation stations. The interactive/case-based lectures include the following topics:
- Altered mental status and neurologic disorders
- Respiratory dysfunction
- Shock
- Chest discomfort
- Endocrine
- Metabolic and environmental disorders
- Abdominal discomfort
- Infectious disease
- Toxicologic emergencies
- Hazardous materials
- And weapons of mass destruction
Teaching stations follow the associated lectures each day.
AMLS is endorsed by the National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP). It is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for PreHospital Continuing Education (CAPCE) and is recognized by the National Registry of EMTs (NREMT). Students who successfully complete the AMLS course will receive a certificate of completion that is valid for four years.
Prehospital Trauma Life Support
NAEMT’s Prehospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) is recognized around the world as the leading continuing education program for prehospital emergency trauma care. The mission of PHTLS is to promote excellence in trauma patient management by all providers involved in the delivery of prehospital care through global education. PHTLS is developed by NAEMT in cooperation with the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma. The Committee provides the medical direction and content oversight for the PHTLS program.
PHTLS courses improve the quality of trauma care in your area and decrease mortality. The program is based on a prehospital trauma care philosophy, stressing the treatment of the multi-system trauma patient as a unique entity with specific needs. This may require an approach to the trauma patient that varies from traditional treatment modalities. PHTLS promotes critical thinking as the foundation for providing quality care. It is based on the belief that, given a good fund of knowledge and key principles, EMS practitioners are capable of making reasoned decisions regarding patient care. The PHTLS course is continuously updated and revised to keep up with the advances in the field, ATLS Guidelines and feedback from PHTLS participants.
Although PHTLS originated in the United States, it has evolved and now serves as an international education program available to EMS providers in countries around the world.
Geriatric Education for Emergency Medical Services
NAEMT has partnered with Jones & Bartlett Learning (JBL) and the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) to develop the 2nd edition GEMS course. A team of experienced EMS educators and clinicians serving as members of NAEMT’s GEMS Committee has designed a course that prepares EMS practitioners to respond to the unique challenges and needs of an older patient. The course aims to empower practitioners with geriatric-specific training to help them improve the medical outcomes and quality of life for these patients.
Significant changes in the second edition course include:
- The introduction of a one-day, 8-hour “core” provider course. Recognizing the critical importance of Geriatric EMS education to quality patient care, the committee wanted to offer a course framework with flexibility to meet the needs of all EMS practitioners. The 8-hour GEMS Core Course is designed for a combined BLS/ALS classroom for all EMS students and can be offered on its own, or in conjunction with a second one-day “advanced” scenario-based course (in development).
- More geriatric-specific information included in the lectures. While still maintaining a scenario-based approach with emphasis on the GEMS diamond, the PowerPoint lectures include slides that highlight geriatric-specific content such as fall prevention, epidemiology, polypharmacy, and more. The lectures provide core knowledge to ensure a foundation of understanding for the scenarios, and ultimately for assessing and treating patients.
- All lectures provide one or two case scenarios that enhance participant involvement and discussion.
- New lecture on disasters and the associated needs of older patients. This lecture discusses the unique challenges that are specific to the geriatric population in disasters and the EMS logistics associated with them.
- New lecture on Mobile Integrated Healthcare-CommunityParamedicine (MIH-CP) and the opportunity to make a difference with older patients. This lecture discusses the identification of patients who would benefit from MIH-CP and the EMS role in patient advocacy.
- New videos covering elder abuse, MIH-CP and trauma. These videos provide real-world situations that providers could encounter and demonstrate proper communication, assessment and patient care.
Ultimately this course will enhance the competence, confidence and compassion of EMS practitioners in responding to geriatric patients. Course sites will be able to offer the 8-hour Core Course alone, or in combination the Advanced Course (coming soon) for a 16-hour GEMS experience. GEMS also offers a solid supplement to the initial EMT and paramedic curriculum, helping educators reinforce the affective domain while incorporating strong cognitive and psychomotor components.
If you’d like to learn more about this program, call us at (607) 754-3414 ext. 237.