Maintenance and Development of Paramedics' Competence on Joint Emergency Medical Service and Helicopter Emergency Medical Service Missions.

OBJECTIVE: In health care, learning and collaboration between professions are crucial in providing patient-centered, responsive, and high-quality care. Given that interprofessional learning can occur indirectly while working but is scarcely studied in the context of prehospital emergency care, we examined the maintenance and development of paramedic competence on joint emergency medical service (EMS) and helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) missions.

METHODS: Qualitative methodology was chosen. Sixty-one Finnish paramedics and EMS field supervisors answered a single open-ended survey question. Inductive content analysis was used to analyze the data.

RESULTS: The maintenance and development of paramedics' competence on joint EMS and HEMS missions formed 2 main categories: the transfer of professional skills and interactive competence development. The transfer of skills was formed by 3 upper categories: practicing working as part of the team, transmission of tacit knowledge, and deepening of clinical knowledge. Interactive competence development was formed by 2 upper categories: ensuring one's own competence and educational working model as built-in. All the upper categories had several subcategories.

CONCLUSION: EMS and HEMS joint missions provide an additional learning opportunity for paramedics. The expertise, examples, and educational attitudes shared by the HEMS are valued. The results reveal the need for further research on this subject.