EAGLE, Colo. — Emergency medicine carries a deep aura of romance in America, with its first-responder traditions of adrenaline, acuity and bravery. But here in this rural mountain area of the West, and in a handful of other places around the nation, a new vision is gaining ground — that emergency workers should not wait around for crises to happen, but rather go out and prevent them.

People like Kevin Creek are blazing the path.

Mr. Creek, after years of roadside rescue and urban mayhem, is Colorado’s first “community paramedic.” In this rapidly aging area, he is also leading an eight-week course at the senior center — part fitness and flexibility training, part psychology — about maintaining balance and avoiding falls.

“All right, now let’s try and touch both toes,” Mr. Creek, a 40-year-old with a shaved head and earrings who is a weight lifter in his off hours, said as he led the class on a recent morning here in Eagle, about two hours west of Denver.

His message to the participants — ranging in age from their 70s to their 90s, and including a few who have broken hips in the past — was that a little work could go a long way toward keeping them out of the hospital and in their homes.