Standards and quality indicators for best practice in paramedic and inter-professional experiential practica

Approximately 15,000 paramedics respond to over three million calls a year to treat critically ill and injured patients in Australia. Although these professionals are a vital component of the nation’s health care, emergency preparedness, public safety and public health systems, paramedicine is still a young discipline within the university setting and does not yet have a national curriculum or national standards.`The long-term goal of the work was to guide the development of a standard national curriculum, which would contribute towards the development of international clinical standards. This presentation will describe the work of the project team.The project has developed recommendations for ‘standards’ within paramedic experiential inter-professional clinical practice at the undergraduate level. The recommendations proposed, are an opportunity to structure and optimise action plans to facilitate best practice clinical practica for student learning in paramedic placements. A final set of standards has been prepared for use in designing and implementing clinical learning in collaboration with partner agencies. These standards have been designed to support the delivery of safe and effective clinical learning opportunities for paramedic students. The standards could also be used to evaluate the appropriateness of selected clinical placements. A pilot implementation and subsequent evaluation of the validity and practicality of the standards is recommended.