Emergency Medical Technician (EMT)

An emergency medical technician (EMT) is a health professional whose primary focus is to
respond to, assess and triage emergent, urgent, and non-urgent requests for medical care, and to
apply basic knowledge and skills necessary to provide patient care and medical transportation to/
from an emergency or health care facility. Depending on a patient’s needs and/or system
resources, EMTs are sometimes the highest level of care a patient will receive during ambulance transport. EMTs often are paired with higher levels of personnel as part of an
ambulance crew or other responding group. With proper supervision, EMTs may serve as a
patient care team member in a hospital or health care setting to the full extent of 
credentialing. In a community setting, an EMT might visit patients at home and make
observations that are reported to a higher-level authority to help manage a patient’s care. When
practicing in less populated areas, EMTs may have low call volume coupled with being the only
care personnel during prolonged transports. EMTs may provide minimal supervision of lower-
level personnel. EMTs can be the to quickly assess patient conditions, provide stabilizing
measures and request additional resources as needed.