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Paramedicine is a health profession and domain of practice concerned with the assessment, treatment, and care of people experiencing acute illness, injury, or other urgent health needs in a wide range of out-of-hospital and related settings. It has developed internationally from a vocation based solely around pre-hospital emergency response into an autonomous profession with a broad scope of evidence-based practice. work across emergency care, urgent care, primary care and community care, and may also hold non-clinical roles in education, leadership, research, public health and system development.
Although the organisation and regulation of paramedicine vary across countries, international consensus recognises several shared features: paramedicine forms an essential component of modern healthcare systems; paramedics possess complex clinical knowledge and skills enabling them to practise safely in unscheduled, unpredictable or dynamic environments; and depending on jurisdiction, they may practise under medical direction from or as independent clinicians.
The terminology used to describe paramedicine and its practitioners differs internationally and includes terms such as ambulance services, emergency medical services (EMS), paramedic, and emergency medical technician (EMT), among others. This variation in nomenclature reflects historical and jurisdictional differences but broadly refers to elements of the same professional domain.
In many countries, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom and parts of Europe, paramedics are statutorily regulated and practise as autonomous clinicians under their own licence. In other systems, including parts of the United States and Asia, paramedic practice commonly occurs under medical oversight as part of an EMS model. These differences represent local regulatory, operational and educational models.
In the United States, such regulated tasks as starting an IV, administering medication, and invasive procedures are performed under the direction of a licensed physician. In the United Kingdom, paramedics practice as independent clinicians under their own licence, as regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council, with complete autonomy to legal death, administer , and generally treat patients as they see fit.
Other areas of inquiry in paramedic theory include emergency response, response planning, community education, transport medicine, disaster preparedness and response, emergency management, pandemic and epidemic, emergency response planning, special operations, and medical aspects of rescue.
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