Canada moves toward single national standard for paramedics

By Art Hsieh
EMS1 Editorial Advisor

The Canadian government is working with its provincial and territorial partners to "ensure that paramedics are free to practice their occupation wherever opportunities may exist," it was announced last week.

The Alberta College of Paramedics will receive, on behalf of paramedic regulatory authorities across Canada, more than $1 million from the Government of Canada to develop, in collaboration with Canadian regulatory authorities, a single national standard and process for the qualification, assessment and certification of paramedics, leading to full labor mobility for practitioners.

This is a solid step in allowing EMS personnel to work freely within Canada. In the United States, while the National EMS Education Agenda has proposed a method to create uniformly trained personnel across the country, each state has the right to establish regulatory boundaries on the ability for certain professionals to work, including EMS providers.

In the early development of EMS, each state created its own methods to train and certify its EMS personnel; today 46 states utilize the National Registry of EMTs examination process to test one or more levels of EMS personnel.

Each state continues to have its own process in certifying or licensing its personnel, with a myriad of paperwork pathways, minimum qualifications and background checks. For example, not all states have even equivalent levels of certification, making it difficult for an EMT-Intermediate in one state to work in another.

Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories. It will be interesting to see how challenging it will be to create a uniform licensure process for its varying levels of EMS providers. It will be even more interesting to see how the process might ever be applied in the future to the United States' 50 states plus its territories.

Art Hsieh, MA, NREMT-P, is Chief Executive Officer & Education Director of the San Francisco Paramedic Association, a published author of EMS textbooks and a national presenter on clinical and education subjects.