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 department (ED), also known as an accident and emergency department (A&E), emergency room (ER), emergency ward (EW) or casualty department, is a medical treatment facility specializing in emergency medicine, the acute care of patients who present without prior appointment; either by their own means or by that of an ambulance. The emergency department is usually found in a hospital or other primary care center.
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 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.
Samu or SAMU may refer to:
The Paris Fire Brigade is a French Army unit which serves as the primary fire and rescue service for Paris, the city's inner suburbs and certain sites of national strategic importance.
The Orsan plan is the emergency plan in France to face a sudden increase of activity in a hospital, such as a massive arrival of casualties due to an accident or a disaster, an epidemic or a lasting climatic event that becomes deadly for fragile people such as a heatwave.
A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine, but it has also been used to describe alternate care sites used in disasters and other emergency situations.
SMURD is an emergency rescue service based in Romania. SMURD is a structure subordinated to the Romanian General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (IGSU). The name is the Romanian acronym for "Serviciul Mobil de Urgență, Reanimare și Descarcerare", which means Mobile Emergency Service for Reanimation and Extrication. It was created and has been coordinated since its inception by doctor Raed Arafat. The first SMURD unit was created in Târgu Mureș, a city in the center of Transylvania, in 1990. One of the notable co-founders is a Romanian Firefighter Lt. Col. Mircea Pintilie who coordinated the activity between firebrigades from the three countries, Romania, Norway and Great Britain.
Emergency medical services in France are provided by a mix of organizations under public health control. The central organizations that provide these services are known as a SAMU, which stands for Service d’aide médicale urgente. Local SAMU organisations operate the control rooms that answer emergency calls and dispatch medical responders. They also operate the SMUR, which refers to the ambulances and response vehicles that provide advanced medical care. Other ambulances and response vehicles are provided by the fire services and private ambulance services.
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 public health insurance system.
Emergency medical services in Italy currently consist primarily of a combination of volunteer organizations providing ambulance service, supplemented by physicians and nurses who perform all advanced life support (ALS) procedures. The emergency telephone number for emergency medical service in Italy is 118. Since 2017 it has also been possible to call by the European emergency number 112, although this is a general police/fire/medical number.
Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe e.V., commonly referred to as Die Johanniter, is a voluntary humanitarian organisation affiliated with the Brandenburg Bailiwick of the Order of St John, the German Protestant descendant of the Knights Hospitaller. The organisation was founded in 1952 in Hanover under the leadership of Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff. One of the main reasons for its creation was the rise in injuries and deaths from road traffic accidents. JUH participates in international aid efforts together with its sister organisations in other countries as part of the Johanniter International partnership; it also works with the German Malteser Hilfsdienst, affiliated to the Catholic Sovereign Military Order of Malta. As of 2017 the organisation had 37,000 active volunteers and youth members and around 1,300,000 registered members.
The French health care system is one of universal health care largely financed by government national health insurance. In its 2000 assessment of world health care systems, the World Health Organization found that France provided the "best overall health care" in the world. In 2017, France spent 11.3% of GDP on health care, or US$5,370 per capita, a figure higher than the average spent by rich countries, though similar to Germany (10.6%) and Canada (10%), but much less than in the US. Approximately 77% of health expenditures are covered by government-funded agencies.
In Ukraine, emergency medical services are provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Medical Services (UEMS), a special type of government rescue service, the main task of which is to provide free of charge medical assistance to victims, rescuers and any other persons who take part in the response to and/or recovery process after incidents of any kind.
Healthcare in Belgium is composed of three parts. Firstly, there is a primarily publicly funded healthcare and social security service run by the federal government, which organises and regulates healthcare; independent private/public practitioners, university/semi-private hospitals and care institutions. There are a few private hospitals. Secondly is the insurance coverage provided for patients. Finally, industry coverage; which covers the production and distribution of healthcare products for research and development. The primary aspect of this research is done in universities and hospitals.
Emergency Medical Services in Spain (EMS) are public services usually provided by regional Governments.
SOS Médecins is a medical emergency service of France which sends doctors directly to a residence instead of sending an ambulance. This works seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, and participates with close liaison with the public emergency services, and continuity of care in many urban centers and its periphery.
Emergency medical services in Russia is a type of medical assistance provided to citizens in cases of accident, illnesses, injuries, poisonings, and other conditions requiring urgent medical intervention. These services are typically provided by a city or regional government, public emergency hospital, or the Disaster Medical Service. The emergency number for dialing an ambulance in Russia is 03 or 103, the generic European 112 can be use in some areas. 03 is called by landlines only while 103 and 112 can be called from mobile phones.
In Belgium organized public fire services are available everywhere in the country. The responsibility to provide general firefighting and rescue services resides with 34 public authorities called 'fire zones', or literally translated 'emergency rescue zones'. The Brussels Capital Region is protected by the Brussels Fire and Emergency Medical Service, which has its own legal status. Together the 34 fire zones and the Brussels Fire and Emergency Medical Service employ about 17,000 firefighters in total according to 2018 figures, and as of 2023 maintain 320 fire stations spread over the entire Belgian territory. In case of emergency, the response of Belgian fire services can be obtained through the 112 emergency telephone number.
Emergency medical services in Belgium are commonly available throughout the country. In Belgium, the provision of prehospital emergency medical services (EMS) is assured by a network of various public and private organizations. The EMS system as a whole is overseen by Belgium's federal government, primarily by the FPS Health and the federal minister of Health. An EMS intervention typically starts by placing a call to one of the country's emergency call centres (PSAPs) through the 112 telephone number. The emergency call centre then sends the most appropriate EMS resources to the patient. After on-scene care, the patient will typically be transported to the emergency department (ED) of a hospital for further treatment. The responsibility of the Belgian EMS system ends with the receiving hospital taking charge of the patient.
![The former Hospice Saint-Michel [fr], 35 Avenue Courteline [fr], current site of the SAMU social of Paris Hospice Saint-Michel.JPG](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Hospice_Saint-Michel.JPG/220px-Hospice_Saint-Michel.JPG)
