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Role standards

Clinical support

Medical transport specialist

What someone moving patients between home, clinic and facility by road must be able to do on their own in a driveway with nobody watching: help a passenger on and off the vehicle without hurting either of them, secure a wheelchair and its occupant properly, drive so a frail passenger is not injured by the ride, talk with a passenger who is confused, hand them over to a person rather than a doorway, and know the moment a routine trip has become an emergency. Drawn from the Community Transportation Association of America's PASS curriculum, the certification most non-emergency medical transportation contracts require of a driver.

Practice this assessmentHire for this role
Expectations
10
Safety red lines
5
Sources
3
Version
1

Built from Community Transportation Association of America, United States Government Publishing Office, Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Reviewed by clinicians, last on .

01What the role is measured on#

Every verdict is made of the same five dimensions. Each is scored on its own, so a candidate sees where they are strong and where to work.

  • Clinical skillsThe hands-on and judgement work of the role: recognising what matters, acting in the right order, and knowing when something cannot wait.
  • Workflow and toolsGetting the work done in a real setting: the systems, records, equipment and handoffs the role runs on, used correctly and on time.
  • Patient communicationHow the role talks with patients, families and colleagues: listening, explaining plainly, and confirming what was understood.
  • Compliance and safetyThe rules that protect people: privacy, consent, infection control, reporting duties and the safety checks the role is accountable for.
  • Role knowledgeKnowing the job itself: what the role is responsible for, where its scope ends, and who to bring in when it does.

02What a ready hire does#

What a competent medical transport specialist does on day one, dimension by dimension.

Clinical skills

  • Helps a passenger move, board and be seated using the method their ability and their equipment call for, without taking the weight of a person who cannot take their own.
  • Recognises an arrest or a choking in the vehicle, calls for help, and starts the basic life support a lay responder is trained and expected to give.

Workflow and tools

  • Delivers a passenger into the care of a named person at both ends when their trip requires it, and passes on what changed during the ride.
  • Records the trip and anything that happened on it accurately and at the time, because the run sheet is the only record the trip leaves.

Patient communication

  • Gets a passenger with dementia, delirium or a communication difficulty onto the vehicle and through the trip without force, deception or leaving them behind.
  • Handles a late, missed or upsetting trip so the passenger is looked after and the problem is reported rather than argued about.

Compliance and safety

  • Secures every mobility device at four points with the occupant restrained, operates the lift by its procedure, and drives so the ride itself does not injure the passenger.
  • Protects themselves, the next passenger and the vehicle from infection and from blood or body fluids, by the route the exposure calls for.

Role knowledge

  • Knows this is transport and not care: gives no clinical treatment, no medication and no medical advice, and says so plainly when asked.
  • Recognises when a routine trip has turned into an emergency, calls 911 first, and makes sure dispatch and the family or facility know what happened.

03Safety red lines#

Any one of these keeps a candidate from Ready Day One, whatever the rest of the score. They are published so nobody meets them for the first time in the assessment.

  • Lifts or drags a passenger who cannot bear their own weight - under the arms, by an arm, or carried up or down steps alone - or tips an occupied wheelchair up a step, instead of using the equipment or getting a second person.

    This is how frail passengers get fractures, dislocated shoulders and torn skin, and how drivers end their own careers with a back injury.

  • Moves the vehicle with an occupied mobility device held by fewer than four securement straps, with the occupant restraint unfastened, with straps attached to wheels or removable parts, or with the lift not stowed - including for a short trip.

    In a crash or a hard stop an unsecured chair and its occupant become the heaviest thing in the vehicle, and the people carried this way are the least able to survive it.

  • Leaves a passenger who cannot be left alone at a kerb, an empty home or a closed facility door, or drives away without a named person accepting them, or fails to report a deterioration or a fall that happened during the trip.

    A dependent passenger left at a door is a patient nobody knows is there, and the change nobody was told about is the one that hurts them.

  • Forces, tricks or physically manoeuvres a confused passenger aboard against their resistance, leaves them alone in the vehicle, or abandons the pickup without telling dispatch, the family or the facility.

    It is assault to force a person aboard, a passenger left in a vehicle can overheat or wander, and a confused person left behind with nobody told is the start of a missing person report.

  • Continues to the appointment, the home or the hospital with a passenger showing chest pain, stroke signs, severe breathing difficulty or an inability to be roused, instead of stopping and calling 911, or waits for dispatch to authorise the call.

    These are the conditions where minutes decide the outcome, and a transport vehicle carries none of what the patient needs.

04Outside the role#

Knowing where the role stops is part of the standard. Going past it is not extra credit.

  • Does not give, administer, hand over or prompt medication, including the passenger's own and including oxygen adjustments.Leaves medication to the family, the facility or a licensed clinician, and reports to dispatch when a passenger needs help the trip cannot provide.
  • Does not assess, diagnose, or give an opinion on symptoms, and does not tell a passenger whether they need to see a clinician.Describes what they saw to the receiving staff or dispatch, calls 911 when the signs are urgent, and tells the passenger to raise it with their own clinician.
  • Does not carry a passenger whose condition needs clinical monitoring or ambulance-level care, and does not attempt a transfer beyond their training and equipment.Stops, tells dispatch the trip needs a higher level of transport or a second person, and stays with the passenger until that is arranged.
  • Does not refuse a passenger because of a diagnosis, a disability or a mobility device, since that is unlawful under the Americans with Disabilities Act.Refuses only on a genuine, stated safety ground - a device that cannot be secured or exceeds the lift capacity - and reports it so the service is arranged another way.
  • Does not discuss a passenger's condition, destination or appointment with anybody who is not part of the trip, including other passengers.Passes information only to the receiving staff, the named carer and dispatch, and refers other requests to the agency.

05How it is assessed#

  • A spoken assessment

    An examiner talks the candidate through realistic cases from this role, and follows up the way a senior colleague would.

  • Five dimensions

    Each answer is read against the expectations above and rated on the same four-level scale.

  • The 70 bar

    Every scorecard shows the score against 70, overall and for each dimension, with the reason for the verdict.

  • Safety first

    Crossing one of the safety red lines holds a pass back, however strong the rest was.

The four levels

  1. Not yet
  2. Developing
  3. Proficient
  4. Exemplary
How a verdict is made

06Sources and review#

Drawn from the certification frameworks and practice standards below, and reviewed by clinicians. Version 1, last reviewed .

Cited as sources. Not an endorsement by the organizations named.

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