Emergency Medical Responder (EMR)

Emergency medical responders (EMR) provide fundamental out-of-hospital care working with other healthcare providers in a wide variety of settings. When working on ambulances they can assess, stabilize and transport patients to hospital. Each will be partnered with a paramedic to expand the number of teams available to respond to an emergency call. They may also work in teams of two to transfer low-risk patients who have been assessed and do not require medical care during transport, or in emergency department offload areas, freeing up paramedics to focus on and respond to emergency calls faster.

On the job, EMRs will:

• lift, move and secure patients safely
• administer some symptom-relief medication
• provide oxygen
• conduct a basic patient assessment
• take vital signs
• perform CPR
• address life-threatening bleeding

To increase the number of paramedics working in Nova Scotia, a bridging program is being developed for emergency medical responders who want to become paramedics.