Continuing Education for Prehospital Healthcare Providers in India – A Novel Course and Concept

摘要

Emergency medical services (EMS) in India face enormous challenges in providing care to a geographically expansive and diverse patient population. Over the last decade, the public–private-partnership GVK EMRI (Emergency Management and Research Institute) has trained over 100,000 emergency medical technicians (EMTs), with greater than 21,000 currently practicing, to address this critical gap in the healthcare workforce. With the rapid development and expansion of EMS, certain aspects of specialty development have lagged behind, including continuing education requirements. To date, there have been no substantial continuing education EMT skills and training efforts. We report lessons learned during development and implementation of a continuing education course (CEC) for EMTs in India.