Incorporating drugs and devices into emergency medical services systems

The proliferation of new medical technology and pharmacology forces the medical community to ensure the efficacy and safety of new drugs and devices before their use in patient care. Although traditional medical practices have a fairly consistent means to achieve this end, prehospital medical practice often does not. In addition, it often appears that the emergency medical services marketplace does not always follow conventional supply/demand and cost/quality paradigms. This article describes a process implemented in Pennsylvania to standardize the mechanism by which new drugs and devices are introduced into prehospital medical practice.