Emergency
                        Medical
                           Services

There has always been some type of transport around for the sick and injured, but long ago it was pretty much confined to the military. Wagons would transport the dead and injured from the battlefield to an area where they could be taken care of. The citizenry was pretty much left to fend for themselves.
    Later on, the undertakers wagon would double as the vehicle used to bring someone to the doctors office or the hospital (many people can remember this). As towns and villages grew, they began to develop systems for transporting people in need.
    However, in 1966, a report was issued entitled "Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society." This is referred to as the White Paper, and stressed the lack of a standardized system for the handling of the citizenry in emergency situations.
    This prompted the federal government to take some action. The Highway Safety Act of 1966, in addition to highway safety standards, charged the Department of Transportation with establishing standards for Emergency Medical Services that would be uniform nationwide. It also shook the money tree, and a lot of federal dollars became available for establishing these standards.
    The Department of Health and Human Services has described the EMS system as a system that provides for the arrangement of personnel, facilities and equipment for the effective and coordinated delivery of health care services in an appropriate geographical area under emergency conditions.
    Well, guess what? Everybody's idea of what constitutes an emergency is different. I'm not so vain that I think I could tell the whole history of EMS here, but now you have a little background. The field has changed a lot over the years, and is still changing. I'm just going to try to explain about the system and its different parts. Still interested? Let's move on.