The Park Slope Volunteer Ambulance Corps, or PSVAC, is a community organization that provides emergency medical response, rescue operations, patient assessment, treatment, and transport in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York. [1] Since 1992, members have responded to over ten thousand calls for help.[ citation needed ]
PSVAC's mission is to: [2]
The Park Slope Volunteer Ambulance Corps was founded by members of the Park Slope community in 1992, [3] in response to a scarcity of EMS resources and increased call-times.
PSVAC has won recognition including numerous awards [4] and sponsorships.
Today, the Park Slope Volunteer Ambulance Corps has over 70 active members, including 20 crew chiefs. PSVAC has four ambulances, patrol bicycles and a first-response fly car. The Corps responds to thousands of calls every year, resulting in treating and/or transporting over seven hundred patients. By comparison, there are entire communities around the country whose annual response is less than 500 calls.
PSVAC is a participating member of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY)'s NYC 911 system.
The corps is composed of unpaid volunteers who donate their time and a wide range of skills and experience. Members who work on PSVAC's ambulances are all trained medical personnel, capable of handling a wide range of emergency situations.
Members come from all walks of life. Some are medical professionals, such as emergency medical technicians (EMT-Bs), paramedics, doctors, etc. Others work in finance, law enforcement, construction, education, business, or are self-employed.
Most members are New York State certified EMT-Bs and work on the ambulances. Other members serve as dispatchers, instructors, manage membership recruitment and perform other support functions.
Emergency medical services (EMS), also known as ambulance services or paramedic services, are emergency services that provide urgent pre-hospital treatment and stabilisation for serious illness and injuries and transport to definitive care. They may also be known as a first aid squad, FAST squad, emergency squad, ambulance squad, ambulance corps, life squad or by other initialisms such as EMAS or EMARS.
An emergency medical technician (EMT), also known as an ambulance technician, is a health professional that provides emergency medical services. EMTs are most commonly found working in ambulances. In English-speaking countries, paramedics are a separate profession that has additional educational requirements, qualifications, and scope of practice.
A paramedic is a health care professional whose primary role is to provide advanced emergency medical care for critical and emergent patients who access the emergency medical system.
A certified first responder is a person who has completed a course and received certification in providing pre-hospital care for medical emergencies. Certified individuals should have received much more instruction than someone who is trained in basic first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) but they are not necessarily a substitute for more advanced emergency medical care rendered by emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics. First responders typically provide advanced first aid level care, CPR, and automated external defibrillator (AED) usage. The term "certified first responder" is not to be confused with "first responder", which is a generic term referring to the first medically trained responder to arrive on scene and medically trained telecommunication operators who provide pre-arrival medical instructions as trained Emergency Medical Dispatchers (EMD). Many police officers and firefighters are required to receive training as certified first responders. Advanced medical care is typically provided by EMS, although some police officers and firefighters also train to become emergency medical technicians or paramedics.
Hatzalah is a volunteer emergency medical service (EMS) organization serving mostly areas with Jewish communities around the world. Most local branches operate independently of each other, but use the common name. The Hebrew spelling of the name is always the same, but there are many variations in transliteration, such as Hatzolah, Hatzoloh, and Hatzola. It is also often called Chevra Hatzalah, which loosely translates as "Company of Rescuers", "Group of Rescuers", or "Rescue Squad".
The Central Park Medical Unit (CPMU) is an all-volunteer ambulance service that provides completely free emergency medical service to patrons of Central Park and the surrounding streets, in Manhattan, New York City, United States.
A nontransporting EMS vehicle, also known as a fly-car, response vehicle, or fast response vehicle, is a vehicle that responds to and provides emergency medical services (EMS) without the ability to transport patients. For patients whose condition requires transport, an ambulance is necessary. In some cases they may fulfill other duties when not participating in EMS operations, such as policing or fire suppression.
The Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust (YAS) is the NHS ambulance service covering most of Yorkshire in England. It is one of ten NHS Ambulance Trusts providing England with emergency medical services as part of the National Health Service it receives direct government funding for its role.
In the United States, emergency medical services (EMS) provide out-of-hospital acute medical care and/or transport to definitive care for those in need. They are regulated at the most basic level by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which sets the minimum standards that all states' EMS providers must meet, and regulated more strictly by individual state governments, which often require higher standards from the services they oversee.
Emergency Medical Service in Germany is a service of public pre-hospital emergency healthcare, including ambulance service, provided by individual German cities and counties. It is primarily financed by the German health insurance companies.
The Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA) is Oklahoma's largest provider of pre-hospital emergency medical care. EMSA provides ambulance service to more than 1.6 million residents in central and northeast Oklahoma.
Advanced emergency medical technician (AEMT) is provider of prehospital emergency medical services in the United States. A transition to this level of training from the Emergency Medical Technician-Intermediate (EMT-I), which had somewhat less training, began in 2013 and has been implemented by most states at this point. The AEMT is not intended to deliver definitive medical care in most cases, but rather to augment prehospital critical care and provide rapid on-scene treatment. AEMTs are most usually employed in ambulance services, working in conjunction with EMTs and paramedics, however are also commonly found in fire departments and law enforcement agencies as non-transporting first responders. Ambulances operating at the AEMT level of care are commonplace in rural areas, and occasionally found in larger cities as part of a tiered-response system, but are overall much less common than EMT and Paramedic level ambulances. The AEMT provides a low-cost, high-benefit option to provide advanced-level care when the paramedic level of care is not feasible. The AEMT is authorized to provide limited advanced life support, which is beyond the scope of an EMT.
Emergency Medical Technician is the entry level of Emergency Medical Technician in the United States.
BRAVO Volunteer Ambulance is a volunteer ambulance organization which provides 24/7 emergency medical services to the neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Fort Hamilton and Dyker Heights in Brooklyn, New York. Its area is boarded by 60th Street to the north, 14th Avenue to the east, and New York harbor to the west and south, including the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. BRAVO an all volunteer organization, providing its services entirely for free, neither billing nor accept any funds from their patients' insurance carriers. BRAVO is supported solely by donations.
Emergency medical responders are people who are specially trained to provide out-of-hospital care in medical emergencies. There are many different types of emergency medical responders, each with different levels of training, ranging from first aid and basic life support. Emergency medical responders have a very limited scope of practice and have the least amount of comprehensive education, clinical experience or clinical skills of emergency medical services (EMS) personnel. The EMR program is not intended to replace the roles of emergency medical technicians or paramedics and their wide range of specialties. Emergency medical responders typically assist in rural regions providing basic life support where pre-hospital health professionals are not available due to limited resources or infrastructure.
Emergency Medical Service in Austria is a service of public pre-hospital emergency healthcare, including ambulance service, provided by individual Austrian municipalities, cities and counties. It is primarily financed by the Austrian health insurance companies.
The New York City Fire Department Bureau of Emergency Medical Services is a division of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) in charge of emergency medical services for New York City. It was established on March 17, 1996, following the merger of the FDNY and New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation's emergency medical services division. FDNY EMS provides coverage of all five boroughs of New York City with ambulances and a variety of specialized response vehicles.
The Hoboken Volunteer Ambulance Corps is the primary 911 EMS provider in Hoboken, and the only full-time all-volunteer ambulance provider in Hudson County. The Corps responds to nearly 5000 calls for service yearly in Hoboken and, as needed, in neighboring areas.
The Blacksburg Volunteer Rescue Squad was established in 1950 as an all-volunteer EMS agency providing free service to a community of approximately 55,000 residents, including approximately half of Montgomery County, Virginia, and the Town of Blacksburg, which is home to Virginia Tech. The squad has approximately 120 members, including full-time community residents with other jobs and high school and college students.