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Course Description

This online course is 36 learning hours over twelve weeks, including 7.5 hours of live online sessions. It is recommended that students spend a minimum of 3 hours each week on coursework. Students may choose to complete more hours of work on the course in order to explore the content in more depth.


This course concerns itself with understanding the variety of different fire service involvements within both fire-based and non-fire based Emergency Medical Systems (EMS), as well as appropriate medical oversite compliance systems necessary to meet modern care needs of the patient and community. By following best practices, the departments' emergency delivery will be to the highest standards, providing time-critical response together with effective patient care through strategically and geographically well-positioned appropriate fire stations and apparatus staffed by applicably equipped and trained emergency medical personnel. In many cases, this will be higher trained firefighters.

Course Outline

Unit 1: What is an EMS System?

By a combination of reading, studying and assignment preparation, you will gain an understanding of:

  • the different components which constitute a prehospital EMS system;
  • the resources required for each component of the EMS system;
  • the role of the fire service within the EMS system and each of the components;
  • the global and Canadian history of EMS.


Unit 2: Fire EMS Delivery Models

By a combination of reading, studying and assignment preparation, you will gain an understanding of:

  • the wide variety of fire service involvement within EMS systems and the main features of each system;
  • prevalent Canadian systems and how they interface with other EMS components; and
  • advantages and disadvantages of each system from a variety of customer, fire service and other perspectives.


Unit 3: Fire EMS Management

By a combination of reading, studying and assignment preparation, you will gain an understanding of:

  • the universality of common principles of management;
  • management methodologies that are being used within fire/EMS organizations together with their application and results;
  • the importance of the fire service culture when attempting to change organization roles and direction.


Unit 4: Professional Competency

By a combination of reading, studying and assignment preparation, you will gain an understanding of:

  • the need for fire/EMS service involvement to be carried out in a professionally competent manner;
  • the importance of medical direction in providing fire/EMS services at all levels;
  • common levels of EMS caregiver competency; and
  • medical direction methods within fire/EMS services.


Unit 5: Costing Budgeting

By a combination of reading, studying and assignment preparation, you will gain an understanding of:

  • the budget structure within fire departments;
  • the cost implications of various fire department EMS models;
  • factors to consider when constructing a fire ambulance transport competitive bid; and
  • a variety of fire/EMS costing models.


Unit 6: Canadian EMS

By a combination of reading, studying and assignment preparation, you will gain an understanding of:

  • the history of Canadian EMS;
  • the background as to the legislative context of Canadian EMS;
  • the background and history of EMS from the perspective of a number of different companies;
  • the background and history of Canadian Fire Service EMS.


Unit 7: EMS in the New Millennium

By a combination of reading, studying and assignment preparation, you will gain an understanding of:

  • the trends within EMS delivery systems together with their likely effect upon Canadian fire services;
  • the strengths and weaknesses of private and third service EMS providers;
  • the potential options for Canadian fire based EMS systems.

What You Will Learn

  • A variety of the most common fire service involvement methods together with their systems within Emergency Health Services.
  • Oversight methods towards ensuring competent quality patient care.
  • Current trends within fire service-EMS involvement and systems.
  • The importance of delivering time critical response and effective patient care rapidly.

Notes

Fire Officer Certification: Is one of four required courses for Fire Officer IV. Before students can earn Fire Officer IV, they must have received Fire Officer III from the Faculty of Open Learning and Career Development. All grades must be 70% or higher. Self-serve tracking of progress towards Fire Officer IV Accreditation is available. To request enrolment in the CE0100 Fire Officer IV Accreditation Track, email openlearning@dal.ca .

For more Fire Service Management courses click here.

The Faculty of OLCD recommends an intermediate level of English language proficiency for the most effective learning and participation in our online and face-to-face courses. A list of minimum recommended scores on some common English tests can be found on our website. If you have questions about your English language proficiency and ability to succeed in this course, please contact openlearning@dal.ca.

Prerequisites

In order to use this elective course toward the Certificate in Fire Service Administration you must first complete the Certificate in Fire Service Leadership program. An additional prerequisite is the completion of at least one CFSA course.

In some cases special permission may be granted from the program director to take this as an 'isolated' course (not used toward the CFSA certificate).

Prerequisite: Completion of the "Certificate in Fire Service Leadership"

Recommended For

  • Students working toward or within decision making areas of their fire service.
  • Students who believe their fire service should be based upon the emergency needs of their community.
  • Members of the fire service who wish to better understand paramedicine educational systems.
  • Senior fire service leaders desirous of understanding the changing importance of EMS involvement.
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Enrol Now - Select a section to enrol in
Section Title
EMS Management and the Fire Department
Type
Online - Self-Paced
Dates
Sep 05, 2025 to Nov 28, 2025
Type
Online - Scheduled
Days
Thursday
Time
7:00PM to 8:30PM
Dates
Sep 18, 2025 to Nov 13, 2025
Schedule and Location
Total Learning Hours
36.0
Location
  • Online Campus - Atlantic Time
Instruction Delivery Method(s)
Course Fee(s)
Fee non-credit $1,195.00
Required Software
A webcam and microphone/headset will be required for the live sessions. This course requires a Dalhousie NetID. If you do not currently have a NetID, a NetID will be assigned to you, and—after registration—you will receive an email on how to claim your account. Once you have claimed your account, you will login to the Student Portal under the heading "I have a NetID Username and Password" on the far left of the login screen.
Section Notes

This course has scheduled written assignments and discussions within the term time frame. There will also be 5 facilitated online sessions - click on View Details for dates. *Please note: Live session dates and times may be subject to change, but will be finalized 6 weeks prior to course start date.

The course site will be open at 4:00 PM Atlantic Time on the course start date.

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