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A survey of emergency medical services systems on college and university campuses
B R King1, B S Zachariah, D C Cone
1Department of Emergency Medicine, Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 19129, USA.
Introduction:
Many colleges and universities appear to exist in relative isolation from community-based emergency medical services (EMS) systems. In response, some have developed their own EMS systems.
Objective:
To determine the extent of this phenomenon and to delineate the characteristics of these systems.
Design/Methods:
Questionnaires were mailed to 1,503 colleges/universities in the United States and Canada. The questionnaire asked whether the institution had an EMS system and included 19 questions about the characteristics of the system.
Results:
A total of 919 (61%) responses were received. Of the institutions responding, 234 (25%) had an EMS system and 31 (3.4%) were considering starting a system. Characteristics of the systems were as follows: 1) Types of patients-the two most common call types were medical and trauma/surgical; 134 (57%) reported one-fourth of calls to be medical and 91 (39%) reported one-fourth of calls to be trauma/surgical. 2) Type of service-133 (57%) services transport patients; 195 (83%) respond only to the campus or other university property; the remainder also respond to the community; and 135 (58%) function all year. 3) Dispatch-178 (76%) are dispatched by the campus police, although most services are dispatched by several sources; 46 (20%) use 9-1-1. 4) Personnel-two systems (0.85%) exclusively employ paramedics; 141 systems (60%) have at least one emergency medical technician; the remainder use emergency care attendants and first-aid providers; 118 (50%) have medical directors, of these 76 (64%) are student health physicians and 21 (18%) are community physicians. 5) Demographic Information-The majority of the campus-based EMS systems exist on small campuses in urban areas.
Conclusions:
A significant number of colleges/universities have EMS systems and one-half transport patients. However, the level of training of the personnel and medical direction may be below the standard for the EMS systems in the communities in which these campus-based systems exist.