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Protect lives by designing and evaluating emergency medical services systems using the guidelines and recommendations in the 2013 NFPA 450.

To serve the public and support first responders, effective provision of pre-hospital care requires the coordination and cooperation of disparate elements. To address all the diverse factors, NFPA 450: Guide for Emergency Medical Services and Systems provides guidelines, resources, and recommendations to help those interested or involved in comprehensive EMS systems development and/or design. This document also provides a framework for evaluating systems and making improvements based on that evaluation.

Changes to this latest edition ensure correlation with other federal EMS documents and consistency with commonly used terminology in the EMS community, including:

• Clarifying the foundation of NFPA 450 and its ties with the EMS Agenda for the Future
• Clearly defining what on-line and off-line (direct and in-direct) medical direction is, and is not
• Specifying how medical oversight is to be used in an EMS system

Essential for agencies that are looking to establish an EMS, this document will be useful as a template when developing an EMS system as well as in the evaluation of measurable outcomes. Everyone from local stakeholders to owners and staff of agencies and organizations, needs the latest edition of NFPA 450.