"Aren't they just ambulance drivers?" It's a phrase that many EMS professionals have heard over the years. While it's rarely meant to diminish the work we do, it also doesn't come close to describing the role today's EMS providers play in healthcare.
The reality is that emergency medical care begins the moment our crews arrive- not when a patient reaches the Emergency Department.
At North Shore Health, our EMS team includes Emergency Medical Responders (EMRs), Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs), and Paramedics. Each certification level has a distinct role, specialized training, and unique responsibilities, but they all share one common goal: delivering safe, compassionate, high-quality care when people need it most.
Emergency Medical Responders (EMRs) are often among the first trained medical professionals to arrive. They provide lifesaving interventions such as CPR, bleeding control, oxygen therapy, AED use, and patient stabilization while helping prepare for the next level of care. At North Shore Health, our EMRs also play an important role supporting inter-facility transports and assisting with 911 coverage when needed.
Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) provide comprehensive prehospital patient care and transportation, but in rural Minnesota, their role often extends well beyond what many people expect. Through additional education, ongoing competency validation, and variances approved by the Minnesota Office of EMS, North Shore Health EMTs are trained to perform advanced skills including starting IVs, drawing laboratory specimens, administering emergency medications, managing respiratory emergencies with CPAP/BiPAP, using portable ultrasound to assist with difficult IV placement, and assisting with ventilator setup. For a patient experiencing severe low blood sugar, that could mean receiving IV dextrose before ever reaching the hospital. Someone struggling to breathe may receive advanced respiratory support within minutes of our crew arriving.
Paramedics provide the highest level of prehospital care available in our service. They perform advanced patient assessments, interpret complex cardiac rhythms, manage advanced airways, administer a broader range of medications, and care for critically ill or injured patients during medical emergencies and long-distance transports.
But being an EMS professional is about far more than medical procedures.
Every call begins with uncertainty. Crews may be responding to a cardiac arrest, a motor vehicle crash, a wilderness rescue, or simply "unknown medical." They must rapidly assess the situation, ensure the scene is safe, communicate by radio, coordinate with dispatch, firefighters, law enforcement, air medical, search and rescue teams, or other emergency responders, establish helicopter landing zones when needed, and make critical decisions- all before arriving at the hospital.
In many ways, EMS brings the hospital to the patient.
Here in Cook County, where transport times can be significantly longer than in urban areas, those first minutes of care can make a meaningful difference. That's why North Shore Health continues to invest in advanced education, expanded clinical competencies, simulation training, and ongoing skills validation for every level of our EMS team.
So the next time you see one of our ambulances leaving the bay, remember there's much more happening than transportation. Inside are highly trained healthcare professionals working together to bring emergency care directly to our community- wherever and whenever it's needed.
-Karla Pankow, NSH Director of EMS