Through Zoom, Baker saluted the graduates of American Medical Response’s "Earn While You Learn" program. AMR is the parent company of Vital EMS in Worcester, where the graduates will serve as emergency medical technicians. This was the first Earn While You Learn graduating class out of Worcester. Classes began in December. Baker thanked the graduates for helping fill a void of front-line health care workers at a time of great demand for their services. That void was felt even before the COVID-19 pandemic. “If we ever wondered about how important our EMS teams were to us here in the commonwealth, and around the country, that question has been answered once and for all, as EMTs in many respects have been … especially important to saving lives as we worked our way through this global pandemic over the course of the past 10 or 11 months,” Baker said.