EMS AGENCY

Mission Statement

To protect and improve health and safety of the people in Santa Barbara County through the provision of high quality emergency and disaster medical services, through reasonable costs, community involvement, continuous evaluation, prevention programs and anticipatory planning.

Value Statement

1. We value the patient as the focus of all we do.
2. We value our system participants.
3. We value honesty and integrity.
4. We value respect, fairness and trust.
5. We value teamwork, cooperation and creative problem solving.

Vision

To provide leadership and planning that is pro-active, continuously seeking ways to improve and optimize emergency medical services.

Overview of EMS

Emergency Medical Services is a system of care for victims of abrupt and serious injury or illness. This system depends on the accessibility & synchronization of many different elements, ranging from an informed public able to recognize medical emergencies to a network of hospitals providing specialized care to those injured. The EMS system is important to our community and plays a vital role, integrating the police, fire, ambulance and emergency departments. The EMS system is usually not well understood by the general public. A survey conducted by the American College of Emergency Physicians in 1992 indicated that 50% of the adults in the United States could not distinguish the difference between 9-1-1 and 4-1-1. In other words, half of the adults in America did not recall 9-1-1 as the emergency phone number. Also, only one fifth of the adults surveyed had ever talked to their physicians about what to do in case of a medical emergency. Critical elements necessary for the EMS system to work includes 9-1-1 dispatchers, search and rescue teams, pre-hospital and emergency department staff.