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University Hospital Emergency Medical Services

Advanced Life Support

 

As a major component to one of the largest and most comprehensive hospital based EMS systems nationally, University Hospital EMS operates an ALS division that serves the Greater Newark Metropolitan Area. Primarily responsible for critical illness and acute traumatic injury calls for service for the City of Newark and Cities of Orange and East Orange, these units are among the busiest and most experienced paramedic units in the country.

The ALS division operates five mobile intensive care units (MICU) over four tours that provide service at the advanced life support level of care. Staffed by two New Jersey Department of Health Certified Mobile Intensive Care Paramedics (MICP), these units typically respond to a wide variety of pre-hospital emergency medical requests where pre-hospital advanced life support interventions are needed.

Our ALS units have primary responsibility for all emergency medical calls for service of this type occurring within the City of Newark as well as the neighboring cities of Orange and East Orange. ALS units are also routinely assigned to requests for mutual-aid to other surrounding municipalities.

All ALS units with the exception of MIC-5 operate out of the UH-EMS complex located at 150 Cabinet Street and are dispatched by REMCS on Citywide Channel 1. These city ALS units are assigned to primary response districts and are dispatched with assistance made by recommendations made from a GPS based AVL/MDT system installed in all vehicles.

It is also the responsibility of the UH-EMS ALS division is to provide 24 hour coverage for all EMS requests (ALS and BLS) within local Port Authority of New York and New Jersey operated facilities. This includes Newark Liberty International Airport, Port Newark, and the Elizabeth Seaport. The primary unit designated for this purpose is MIC-5 which is based out of Building 43 at Newark Liberty Airport. While MIC-5 is on assignment, citywide ALS/BLS units from UH-EMS are assigned to cover EMS requests in these areas.

Paramedics assigned to the ALS Division operate under the license of University Hospital's Emergency Department Physicians. Essentially a "mobile-ER," MICU's are capable of performing a variety of advanced medical procedures to critically ill or severely injured patients in the field. These procedures include advanced airway management, intubation, intravenous therapy (IV), medication administration, phlebotomy, ECG monitoring, and advanced cardiac life support (ACLS). These measures assist in the stabilization of a patient prior to reaching the Emergency Department.

All of University Hospital's ALS units operate transport licensed MICU ambulances. This allows for the treatment of critical patients in the specially equipped ALS vehicle and permits ALS units to respond to assignments without requiring a second BLS ambulance for transport. In some circumstances however BLS or other personnel may be utilized to drive the ALS vehicle allowing both paramedics to focus on patient care. ALS may occasionally be assigned extra personnel, which can include an EMT driver, paramedic intern, medical resident, or post-graduate student.