Acronyms
A system that assists dispatchers in selecting appropriate units to respond to a particular call for assistance and provides callers with vital instructions until the arrival of emergency medical services crews.
EMD
Efforts to limit the effects of an injury or illness that you cannot completely prevent.
Secondary prevention
Physician who authorizes or delegates to the provider the authority to perform health care in the field.
Medical Director
A disease that can spread from one person or species to another.
Communicable Disease
A delayed stress reaction to a prior incident, characterized by the reliving of the stress and nightmares of the original situation. Often the result of one or more unresolved issues concerning the incident, and may relate to an incident that involved physical harm or the threat of physical harm.
PTSD
The Law enacted in 1996 that provides for criminal sanctions as well as for civil penalties for releasing a patient's protected health information in a way not authorized by the patient.
HIPPA
Discipline that is focused on examining the health needs of entire populations with the goal of preventing health problems.
Public Health
An individual extensively trained in advanced life support, including endotracheal intubation, emergency pharmacology, cardiac monitoring, and other advanced assessment and treatment skills.
Paramedic
The use of an animal or insects to spread an organism from one person or place to another.
Vector-borne transmission
Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is caused by this, it damages the cells in the body's immune system so that the body is unable to fight infection or certain cancers.
HIV
A system of delivering health care services within the community, rather than at a physician's office or a hospital, with an integrated team of health care professionals.
MIH
A call center staffed by trained personnel who are responsible for managing requests for police, firefighting, and ambulance services.
Public safety access point
Physician instructions given directly by radio or cell phone (online/direct) or indirectly by protocol/guidelines (off-line or in-direct), as authorized by the medical of the service program.
Medical Control
A microorganism that is capable of causing disease in a susceptible host.
Pathogen
Federal regulatory compliance agency that develops, publishes, and enforces guidelines concerning safety in the workplace.
OSHA
A system of internal and external reviews and audits of all aspects of an emergency medical services system.
CQI
A device that detects treatable life-threatening cardiac dysrhythmias (ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia) and delivers the appropriate electrical shock to the patient.
AED
EMR
Exposure to or transmission of an infection from one person to another by contact with a contaminated object.
Indirect contact
Equipment that blocks exposure to a pathogen or a hazardous material.
PPE
An individual trained in specific aspects of advanced life support, such as intravenous therapy and administration of certain emergency medications.
AEMT
An approach to medicine where decisions are based on well-conducted research, methods that have proven effective in improving patient outcomes, and individual patient characteristics and values; recommendations are classified based on the strength of the scientific evidence; also called science-based medicine.
Evidence based medicine (EBM)
An individual trained in basic emergency medical care skills, including AED, use of a definitive airway adjunct, and assisting patients with certain medications.
EMT
Inflammation of the liver, usually caused by a viral infection, that causes fever, loss of appetite, jaundice, fatigue, and altered liver function.
A process that confronts the responses to critical incidents and defuses them, directing the emergency services personnel toward physical and emotional equilibrium.
CISM