Participating In the Nation’s Busiest System

The Center for Emergency Medical Services operates nine ambulances in the New York City system, providing emergency care to the residents surrounding the Health System’s facilities in Forest Hills and Eastern Queens.

Providing vital assistance to the New York City Fire Department EMS system, our units are dispatched by the NYC 911 emergency communications center and operate under FDNY guidelines. The equipment and staff are provided as a service to the City of New York by the North Shore-LIJ Health System. The CEMS first contracted with FDNY in 1998, and has expanded its complement of ambulances to three advanced life support units and six basic life support units.

By all accounts, the New York City EMS system, managed by the New York City Fire Department, is the busiest in the nation. More than 1,000,000 calls are handled by the system each year, with some single days exceeding 3,000 requests for EMS. Each month, the CEMS responds to nearly 2,000 of these requests and transports over 1,500 patients to hospitals in Queens.