History of Ems

History of EMS

Abstract

The history of emergency medicine dates back many centuries. As the years pass

EMS not only progressed in prehospital care, but in the way patients are

transported to the hospital in emergeny situations. Along with the progression of

the transportation and prehospital care of patients, the EMS profession has come a

long way in its regulations too.

The principles of triage were first established during the Civil War by

Major Johnathan Letterman, who also established an efficient system for

distributing medical supplies, and an ambulance corps. Following the war,

veterans began establishing volunteer life saving squads based on what

skills they saw and used in combat. In 1865 civilian ambulance services

began in the U.S. Back then ambulances were horsedrawn carriages drivin

by hospital interns. During the 1920's hearses, which were the most

commonly used, were replaced by fire departments, rescue squads and

private ambulances. By 1969 modern emergency helicopter transport

began after a doctor in Maryland obtained a military helicoptor for the purpose of

rapidly transporting critical patients to what is now known as Shock Trauma, in

Baltimore, MD.

EMS was unregulated from before the Civil War Era to about the

1950s, when funeral homes began patient care and provided ambulances.

http://wvde.state.wv.us/abe/Public%20Service%20Personnel/HistoryofEMS.html

states that:

In 1960 John F. Kennedy declared that "Traffic accidents constitute one of

the greatest, perhaps the greatest, of the nation's public health problems".

Then in 1966 Lyndon B. Johnson and President's Commission on

Highway Safety/National Academ of Sciences declares the carnage "the

neglected disease of modern society." Soon after, the National Highway

Traffic Safety Act was adopted which standardized