Medical Emergency Response Policy

Medical Emergency Response Policy

Updated: 21 June 2026

Every organization will experience medical emergencies involving employees, clients, suppliers, visitors, or bystanders in their facilities or parking areas. The causes are largely outside your control. Being prepared — through awareness, governance, policy, procedures, gear, and training — is the right plan for a 100% probability risk.

A note on liability: Some organizations say “we don’t want anyone to respond, to protect us from liability.” That position is not practical. Ask yourself: what if it were your mother or your child having a medical emergency in the office? Prepare your people to respond.

Key Definitions:

Standard of Care — The level of care, skill, and treatment that a reasonably prudent person with similar training would provide under similar circumstances. Define this specifically for your organization and jurisdiction.

Good Samaritan Laws — State laws (and international equivalents) that provide legal protection to individuals who voluntarily render aid in an emergency. Confirm which laws apply in your state and any locations where your personnel operate.

Higher Level of Care — Emergency Medical Services (EMS), paramedics, or other certified medical professionals whose arrival transfers incident command from your trained responders. Define the handoff process in your procedures.

Scope: These rules apply to any medical emergency with sufficient nexus to the organization that would require or cause a response — even if that response is only calling emergency services. This policy does not cover minor first-aid needs. Your final version must also incorporate any applicable OSHA (or international equivalent) requirements for medical response.

Requirements — Leadership:

• I will support personnel who respond to a medical emergency under the Good Samaritan principle.
• If the organization determines it will formally support medical response:
  • I will provide support — time and/or funding — for CPR, AED, Stop the Bleed, and Blood Borne Pathogen (BBP) training for all authorized personnel at all locations.
  • I will ensure EMS/physician-designed medical gear is available, including at minimum: an AED, an OSHA 2021-B (50-person) first aid kit, an official Stop the Bleed® kit, and BBP kits.
  • I will support Employee Assistance Program (EAP) services and OSHA-compliant cleanup services at all locations with emergency response capabilities.

Requirements — All Personnel:

• I will call EMS/911 as soon as I suspect a medical emergency is occurring — or when I am unable to determine whether it is an emergency — when it is safe to do so.
• I will notify the organization’s medical leader and/or security leader as soon as it is safe to do so after calling EMS/911.
• I will not go hands-on in a medical emergency unless I am trained and equipped to do so. (Supporting a trained responder is appreciated but not required; the responder is the incident commander.)
• I will not surround or allow others to surround the emergency scene.
• If a crowd forms, I will support establishing a soft perimeter around the scene, with bystanders facing away from the patient.

Requirements — All Responding (Hands-On) Personnel:

• I will maintain current training and certification in CPR, AED, First Aid, Stop the Bleed, and Blood Borne Pathogens — at a minimum, Basic Life Support (BLS) level.
• I will only perform response services I am trained, equipped, and comfortable performing, and I will act as incident commander until a higher level of care arrives.
• I will transfer incident command to a higher level of care immediately upon their arrival and provide only factual information to that care provider.
• I will train all personnel on how to support my response capabilities when needed — including perimeter management, calling 911, note-taking, and gear retrieval.

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Related Resources

• Minimum Security/Safety/Medical Response Kit
• Medical Response Likelihood Reference

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Signature Note: I am a huge fan of wet signatures on these types of documents for accountability and investigation reasons. You can add the signature lines below to each rule/policy document, or have a collective wet signature with references in the Security Commitment Agreement document available on the One-Pager library page. Organizational preference.

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