Development and Implementation of Short Courses to Support the Establishment of a Prehospital System in Sub-Saharan Africa: Lessons Learned from Tanzania

Table 2

Course length and core curriculum content for Tanzania EMS short courses.

	Basic ambulance provider	Basic ambulance attendant	Community first aid	Emergency medical services dispatcher
Length of course	6 weeks	4 weeks	5 days	2 weeks
Core content	Introduction to the EMS profession	Introduction to prehospital care	First aid basics	Community first aid
	Overview of basic anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology	Driving safety and emergency traffic rules	Cardiac and choking emergencies	Introduction to EMS dispatch
	Basic life support and the “ABC’s”	Scene safety, lifting, and patient movement	Common illnesses and injuries	Telecommunication and communication essentials
	Patient assessment	Daily ambulance checklist	Patient movement, transport, and transfer	EMS dispatch stress
	Prehospital trauma care	Infection prevention control		Basic medical dispatch
	Medical emergencies	Introduction to EMS dispatch		EMS dispatch protocols
	Transport operations, vehicle extrication, special rescue	Basic life support and the “ABCs”		Dispatch life support
	Psychiatric emergencies	Haemorrhage control
	Environmental emergencies and toxicology	Incident management, Mass causality incidents, and triage concepts
	Paediatrics	Environmental emergencies and toxicology
	Obstetrics and neonatal care	Psychiatric emergencies
	Incident management, Mass causality incidents, and triage concepts