Emergency medical services (EMS), also known as ambulance services ""pre-hospital care"" 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 ambulance is a medically-equipped vehicle used to transport patients to treatment facilities, such as hospitals. Typically, out-of-hospital medical care is provided to the patient during the transport. Ambulances are used to respond to medical emergencies by emergency medical services (EMS), and can rapidly transport paramedics and other first responders, carry equipment for administering emergency care, and transport patients to hospital or other definitive care. Most ambulances use a design based on vans or pickup trucks, though others take the form of motorcycles, buses, hearses, aircraft and boats.
Palm Beach International Airport – also known as PBI Airport and historically as Morrison Field & Palm Beach Air Force Base – is a public airport in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States located just west of the city of West Palm Beach, for which it serves as the primary airport. It is also the primary airport for most of Palm Beach County, serving the suburbs and cities of Boca Raton, Wellington, Boynton Beach, Jupiter, and Palm Beach Gardens. It is the third busiest airport in the Miami metropolitan area after Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport.
London's Air Ambulance Charity is a registered charity that operates a helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) dedicated to responding to serious trauma emergencies in and around London. Using a helicopter from 08:00 to sunset and rapid response vehicles by night, the service performs advanced medical interventions at the scene of the incident in life-threatening, time-critical situations.
The London Ambulance Service NHS Trust (LAS) is an NHS trust responsible for operating ambulances and answering and responding to urgent and emergency medical situations within the London region of England. The service responds to 999 phone calls across the region, and 111 phone calls from certain parts, providing triage and advice to enable an appropriate level of response.
The British Columbia Ambulance Service (BCAS) is an ambulance service that provides emergency medical response for the province of British Columbia, Canada. BCAS is one of the largest providers of emergency medical services in North America. The fleet consists of 658 ground ambulances operating from 183 stations across the province along with 283 non-transport support vehicles. Additionally, BCAS provides inter-facility patient transfer services in circumstances where a patient needs to be moved between health care facilities for treatment. BCAS also operates a medical evacuation program that utilizes both fixed-wing and rotary aircraft.
NSW Ambulance, previously the Ambulance Service of NSW, is an agency of NSW Health and the statutory provider of pre-hospital emergency care and ambulance services in the state of New South Wales, Australia.
The Scottish Ambulance Service is part of NHS Scotland, which serves all of Scotland's population. The Scottish Ambulance Service is governed by a special health board and is funded directly by the Health and Social Care Directorates of the Scottish Government.
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue (PBCFR) is one of the largest fire departments in the state of Florida. With 52 stations, Palm Beach County Fire Rescue provides fire protection, Advanced Life Support, emergency medical services, technical rescue, hazardous materials' mitigation, aircraft rescue/firefighting, fire investigation, and 911 dispatching for unincorporated parts of Palm Beach County, Florida as well as 19 cities under contract.
The Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service is a Canadian non-profit helicopter air ambulance organization funded by individual donors, service groups, corporate donors and government contributions. STARS provides rapid and specialized emergency care and transportation for critically ill and injured patients. STARS operates from bases in Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and formerly Halifax.
Emergency Health Services (EHS) is a branch of the Nova Scotia Department of Health tasked with providing emergency medical services. It is also responsible for transportation of patients between hospitals and medical facilities. At present, all ground ambulance and air ambulance service in Nova Scotia is contracted by EHS to Emergency Medical Care (EMC), a subsidiary of Medavie Health Services.
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.
Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service (WFPS) provides fire and EMS services to the City of Winnipeg, Manitoba. It operates from 27 fire stations, and 3 administration offices across the city.
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 Australia are provided by state ambulance services, which are a division of each state or territorial government, and by St John Ambulance in both Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
The Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) is the state emergency ambulance and patient transport provider in Queensland, Australia. QAS is part of the Queensland Government under the Queensland Health portfolio and is one of the largest ambulance services in the world.
LifeFlight is an air ambulance critical care transport service that operates in the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
ECU Health EastCare is the critical care mobile air and ground transport service of ECU Health at ECU Health Medical Center. It serves 31 counties in Eastern North Carolina. It is sponsored by ECU Health Medical Center and The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. ECU Medical Center is the only level 1 trauma center east of Raleigh. EastCare's five full-time air ambulances constitute the largest air medical program in North Carolina and can serve a radius of 230 nautical miles around Greenville without refueling.
Essex & Herts Air Ambulance Trust (EHAAT) is a charity air ambulance service providing a free, life-saving Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) for the critically ill and injured of Essex, Hertfordshire and surrounding areas.
Air medical services are the use of aircraft, including both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to provide various kinds of urgent medical care, especially prehospital, emergency and critical care to patients during aeromedical evacuation and rescue operations.
