PHTLS - Prehospital Trauma Life Support    

Prehospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) courses are recognized around the world as education programs for prehospital emergency health care professionals that bring the care of the trauma patient into a single focus.

PHTLS promotes excellence in trauma patient management by all providers involved in the delivery of prehospital care through global education.  PHTLS is developed by the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians in cooperation with the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma.

PHTLS courses provide an opportunity to improve the quality of trauma care in your area and decrease mortality. The program is based on a prehospital trauma care philosophy, stressing the need to treat the multi-system trauma patient as a unique entity with specific needs.  This may require an approach to the trauma patient that varies from traditional treatment modalities.

PHTLS promotes critical thinking as the foundation for providing quality care. PHTLS has always believed that, given a good fund of knowledge and key principles, EMS providers are capable of making reasoned decisions regarding patient care.The PHTLS course is continuously updated and revised to keep up with the advances in the field, ATLS Guidelines and feedback from PHTLS participants.  

PHTLS programs are developed from the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) Program, a course for physicians developed by the American College of Surgeons-Committee on Trauma. More importantly, PHTLS courses follow the principles of care of trauma patients as developed by the Committee on Trauma. The Committee on Trauma of the American College of Surgeons provides the medical direction and content oversight for the PHTLS program.  Although PHTLS originated in the United States, it has evolved and serves as an international education program, now available to EMS providers in 33 countries.

PHTLS:  Driven by Science - Guided by Research - Proven by Practice

The following documents provide additional information about PHTLS.

History of PHTLS

PHTLS Awards