Emergency medical services (abbreviated to the initialism "EMS" in many countries) are a branch of Emergency services dedicated to providing out-of-hospital acute medical care and/or transport to definitive care, to patients with illnesses and injuries which the patient, or the First responder, believes constitutes a medical emergency.

Emergency medical services may also be locally known as: First aid squad, Emergency squad, Rescue squad, Ambulance squad, Ambulance service, Ambulance corps or Life squad.

The goal of most emergency medical services is to either provide treatment to those in need of urgent medical care, with the goal of satisfactorily treating the malady, or arranging for timely removal of the patient to the next point of definitive care. This is most likely an emergency department at a hospital or another place where physicians are available. In some developing regions, the emergency medical service does not provide treatment to the patients, but only the provision of transport to the point of care.

In most places in the world, the EMS is summoned by members of the public (or other emergency services, businesses or authority) via an emergency telephone number which puts them in contact with a control facility, which will then dispatch a suitable resource to deal with the situation.

EMS also encompass services developed to move patients from one medical facility to an alternative which usually includes transferring the patient to a higher level of care. These specilized hospitals that provide higher level of care included services such as neonatal intensive care (NICU), state regional burn centers , specilized care for spinal injury and/or neurosurgery, regional stroke centers , specialized cardiac care (cardiac catherization ), and specialized/regional trauma care.

In some jurisdictions, EMS units may handle technical rescue operations such as extrication, water rescue, and search and rescue. Training and qualification levels for members and employees of emergency medical services varies widely throughout the world. EMS in many systems provide members that are qualified to to drive only with no medical training. In contrast, most systems have personnel that retain, at a minimum, a basic first aid certificate (Basic Life Support (BLS)), additionally most EMS systems are staffed with Advanced Life Support (ALS) personnel including fully qualified paramedics, nurses, or, less commonly, physicians.

History

main: Ambulance#History