Critical Care Transports – Specialized Care

The Center for Emergency Medical Services is the region’s premier out-of-hospital critical care service. Using state-of-the-art mobile intensive care units, the CEMS transports some of the sickest patients to the System’s tertiary facilities, keeping patients in an ICU, even when they’re between hospitals. These include unstable cardiac transfers, intra-aortic balloon pump patients, left ventricular assist patients, trauma patients, neurosurgery candidates, and critically sick or injured neonates and pediatric cases.

Cardiac Rescue

Regardless of where a patient is having an acute cardiac-related episode – in a doctor’s office or a hospital CCU – an ambulance is dispatched within moments, ready to respond anywhere in the region. In cooperation with the Health System’s catheterization labs at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and Long Island Jewish Medical Center, we have established a rigid and closely monitored time frame from the time these calls are placed to CEMS until the patient is on the table for the procedure. This time sensitive window guarantees rapid access to emergent coronary angioplasty for our patients. Working in collaboration with the Department of Cardiology, we have decreased the mortality rate of acute MI patients requiring primary angioplasty from 2.93% in 1997 to 0.73% in 2001. Our axiom is simple: “Time is muscle.”

Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care

Working with the Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit teams from Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York and Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, crews from the CEMS facilitate the transportation of very sick children into the Health System’s specialty units. Using specialized vehicles that support the most sophisticated isolettes in the industry, our pediatric and neonatal transport units are designed to allow nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists,

paramedics, and EMT’s the room and resources they need to care for these precious patients. Since time is so critical with sick neonates and pediatric cases, our units are ready to respond within a moment’s notice. Within 20 minutes of the sending facility’s request for a transfer, our ambulances are leaving those facilities with the specialty teams on board. Our reach extends over a large portion of the eastern seaboard of the United States – we have transferred patients from such facilities as Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.