Mount Sinai Health System EMS (Formerly Mount Sinai St. Luke’s and Mount Sinai West Hospital Center Ambulance Service) acquired its first ambulance in 1877, among the first on the streets of New York City. The medical specialty of Emergency Medicine, since its inception almost one hundred years later, has been the ultimate “team sport” among the medical fields. The EMT, Paramedic, Physician, Nurse, ED Tech, Social worker and Administrator have always worked “face to face; hand to hand” to manage a difficult environment and to provide critically needed care. At Mount Sinai Health System, the ambulance and its staff have been a part of that team since the era when the Emergency Department was run by a nurse and the doctor was on call well over 150 years ago.
Our ambulance service has always taken the lead and been an innovator in the field of Emergency Medical Services in New York City. It was on the streets when ambulances were drawn by horses, the first EMS service in New York City to employ women, and among the first to support full paramedic care. Ours was the first ambulance service to use thrombolytics in the field (“Out-of-Hospital Paramedic Administered Streptokinase for Acute Myocardial Infarction,” Lancet, page 1187, 1988). Our service is now pushing the boundaries of EMS, creating the first Mobile Integrated Health Service (Community Paramedicine) in New York City. Our service area spans 3 boroughs