[Results of a Mexican pre-hospital emergency survey]

Emergency medical services (EMS) in Mexico have only recently been regulated, and they lack standardized training, educational or operating protocols.

We need to know the current state of these organizations in order to generate future recommendations

A voluntary, confidential survey was prospectively sent via several internet sites dedicated to EMS. A descriptive analysis of the results was done.

One-hundred and twenty-two useable surveys were collected in 26 states in Mexico. Of these 21% belonged to public institutions, accounting for 7,215 EMS personnel. Among them, 25% were first time respondents and 21% were physicians. 5% of our sample were advanced emergency medical technicians (EMTs). Thirteen percent of the participating organizations do not offer training, while 61.5% train their basic EMT's. Forty-four organizations have fully paid personnel and 27 operate solely with volunteers. There is a direct and permanent medical direction in 40% ofthe institutions. Between 5 and 35% of them are linked to a universal emergency call phone number. Up to 15 organizations do not have ambulances.

There is a high proportion of low-level trained personnel. EMS organizations which are heterogeneous in nature. Service professionalization is important in order to standardize pre-hospital EMS.