The Social Organization of Emergency Medical Services in Calgary, Alberta

Date
2014-08-01
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Abstract
This dissertation uses institutional ethnography to explore the work processes of paramedics and other EMS personnel in Calgary, Alberta. I focus specifically on the work of paramedics and explicating how front-line emergency medical services work is organized and coordinated by different technologies of coordination and control. This research relied on over 200 hours of observations of paramedics, over 100 interviews with paramedics about their work processes, and numerous hours of observations and interviews with emergency medical personnel. The findings report on the complex work of paramedics as they orient to their ever-changing work-settings, patients, and technological devices they work with. Furthermore, I explore how information in emergency medical services is put together by different text-mediated knowledge processes. In doing so, this dissertation explores the complex work of paramedics in the 21st century and explicates how their work is organized and reorganized by reform and restructuring practices.
Description
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Sociology
Citation
Corman, M. (2014). The Social Organization of Emergency Medical Services in Calgary, Alberta (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28379