The Delaware State Fire School has become a National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) training center to be able to deliver additional national EMS programs in the State. These courses are developed and updated regularly to address varying areas of EMS care, to help providers advance their skills.

All courses have CAPCE and/or Delaware OEMS Continuing Education hours available. Courses vary from an 8-hour one-day course, or a 16-hour two-day course. At this time, courses are all in-person, without a hybrid option. Most courses can be run at any of our divisions or may be scheduled as an in-service class on station with a 12-student minimum.

Available NAEMT Courses

PHTLS – Prehospital Trauma Life Support

The mission of PHTLS is to promote excellence in trauma patient management by all providers involved in the delivery of prehospital care. PHTLS was developed by NAEMT in cooperation with the American College of Surgeons’ Committee on Trauma. The Committee provides the medical direction and content oversight for the PHTLS program. 

The PHTLS 16-hour courses improve the quality of trauma care and decrease mortality. The program is based on a philosophy stressing the treatment of the multi-system trauma patient as a unique entity with specific needs. PHTLS promotes critical thinking as the foundation for providing quality care. It is based on the belief that, given a good fund of knowledge and key principles, EMS practitioners are capable of making reasoned decisions regarding patient care.

The course utilizes the internationally recognized PHTLS textbook and covers the following topics:

• Physiology of life and death
• Scene assessment
• Patient assessment
• Hemorrhage control
• Airway
• Breathing, ventilation, and oxygenation
• Circulation and shock
• Special populations

Cost per student: $125 In-State, $225 Out-of-State, Books are $90
Scheduled Dates: February 10 & 11 – NCD, April 6 & 7 – KCD, September 29 & 29 – KCD,
November 12 & 13 – KCD

TECC – Tactical Emergency Casualty Care

The Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC)16-hour course teaches EMS practitioners and other prehospital providers how to respond to and care for patients in a civilian tactical environment.

The course presents the three phases of tactical care and integrates parallel EMS nomenclature:

• Hot Zone/Direct Threat Care that is rendered while under attack or in adverse conditions.
• Warm Zone/Indirect Threat Care that is rendered while the threat has been suppressed but may resurface at any point.
• Cold Zone/Evacuation Care that is rendered while the casualty is being evacuated from the incident site. 

The classroom course includes all new patient simulations and covers the following topics:

• Hemorrhage control including immediate action drills for tourniquet application throughout the course;
• Complete coverage of the MARCH assessment;
• Surgical airway control and needle decompression;
• Strategies for treating wounded responders in threatening environments;
• Caring for pediatric patients;
• Techniques for dragging and carrying victims to safety; and
• A final, mass-casualty/active shooter event simulation.

Cost per student: $125 In-State, $225 Out-of-State, Books are $110
Scheduled Dates: March 14 & 15 – KCD, April 2 & 3 – NCD, April 13 & 14 – KCD, September 14 & 15 – KCD, October 30 & 31 – KCD

GEMS – Geriatric EMS

The GEMS 8-hour course helps EMS practitioners learn to conduct a comprehensive assessment of geriatric patients. Because the aging process affects all body systems, NAEMT’s course provides an overview of changes that occur as people age and describes how those changes can impact patient pre­sentation.  Incorporation of the GEMS Diamond (Geriatric, Environmental, Medical, and Social assessments) can help practitioners formulate a holistic diagnostic and treatment approach.

The third edition of GEMS addresses the following topics:

• Changes with age and assessment of the older patient
• Polypharmacy and Toxicity in Older Patients
• Respiratory Emergencies
• Cardiovascular Emergencies
• Trauma
• Other Medical Disorders
• Neurologic Emergencies
• Elder Maltreatment and Psychosocial Emergencies
• End-of-Life and Palliative Care
• Disaster Triage and Transporting Older Patients
• Left Ventricular Assist Devices
• Skin Disorders
• Ventilators
• Urinary Catheter and Colostomy Bag Care
• Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators

Cost per student: $50 In-State, $150 Out-of-State, Books are $90
Scheduled Dates: March 17 – KCD, April 25 – KCD, October 11 – KCD, October 20 – KCD

EMSS – EMS Safety

The EMS Safety 8-hour course teaches students how to protect themselves and their patients while on the job. It promotes a culture of safety and helps reduce the number of on-the-job fatalities and injuries. EMS Safety is the only national, comprehensive safety course for EMS practitioners. Its interactive format features real-life case studies and compelling discussions on current safety issues and provides students with a forum to share their own experiences. Course activities allow students to apply critical thinking and best safety practices to EMS scenarios. 

Students are taught to:

• Identify and manage the hazards that can appear during daily tasks, from offensive drivers to violent encounters to chronic stress.
• Describe and apply the principles of crew resource management in EMS.
• Apply techniques to maintain safe vehicle operations.
• List and assess strategies to apply in the field that improve patient safety.
• Identify strategies to ensure practitioner safety.
• Strengthen resilience skills and focus on personal health to combat both chronic and critical incident stress.

Topics covered include:

• How safety impacts patients and practitioners, from maintaining a culture of safety in changing situations to communication and documentation strategies.
• Crew resource management in EMS, modeling effective communication, maintaining situational awareness, and being an effective member of a team.
• Emergency vehicle safety including maintenance and inspection considerations, responsibilities of due regard, defensive driving techniques, and common causes of vehicle collisions and strategies to avoid them.
• Safety in the roadway, including multi-agency pre-planning, vehicle and practitioner visibility techniques, and defensive staging practices.
• Patient safety, strategies to identify and prevent common patient errors, just culture, and safe handling techniques for all patients.
• Practitioner safety, situational awareness, and verbal, physical, and chemical techniques to de-escalate potential threats.
• Injury and infection prevention and control.
• Practitioner personal health, resilience skills, and ensuring personal readiness for the daily challenges and hazards of working in the field.

Cost per student: $50 In-State, $150 Out-of-State, Books are $29
Scheduled Dates: April 18 – KCD, June 1 – KCD

To learn more about the programs available through the NAEMT, visit their Education Page.