Rural Volunteer EMS: Reports from the Field

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Rural Volunteer EMS: Reports from the Field overview

Prehospital emergency care services (EMS) are an essential component of a comprehensive health care system. Rural residents and visitors to rural areas rely on EMS for treatment and transport in the event of an injury or other health emergency. In many areas where the number of emergency calls is too small to support a full-time paid EMS service, volunteers are the mainstay of prehospital emergency care. Reports that rural volunteer EMS is threatened appear frequently in local newspapers and online news sources. Surveys have also documented the difficulties in maintaining viable EMS. This report explores the current state of rural EMS by surveying 49 local rural directors from all-volunteer services in 23 states. The following characteristics describe the 49 participating agencies:

• Most (63%) are Basic Life Support (BLS) services and the majority (78%) transport patients.
• Two-thirds have EMT-Intermediates or EMT-Paramedics on their volunteer rolls.
• There are 17 volunteers, on average, on the rolls of each agency, but an average of 11 take calls on a regular basis.
• EMS-only agencies are more common than fire department-based agencies (59% vs. 41%).
• Median call volume is 163 calls per year, just less than one every other day. Agencies with the lowest demand (the lowest 25%) average 38 calls per year.