Jersey City—United Rescue, the sister organization of United Hatzalah in Israel, was recognized for its achievement in launching the first-ever community-based emergency response program in the United States. The program was launched in Jersey City in partnership with Jersey City Medical Center-Barnabas Health (JCMC).

United Rescue collaborated with JCMC which received the EMS 10 award. The prestigious award is given to the top 10 innovative organizations in the EMS field. The award recognizes the achievement by JCMC and United Rescue in initiating the mobile app-based volunteer pre-ambulance emergency medical care service last November.

The award was presented to JCMC and United Rescue during the eighth annual EMS 10 Awards Ceremony which was held on February 24, 2016, at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore Inner Harbor by A.J. Heightman, who is the editor-in-chief of Jems PennWell Corpat magazine.

The Journal of Emergency Medical Services (JEMS) recognized JCMC and United Rescue as the top innovators who have driven the EMS practice to a higher level in 2015.

This award comes just months after United Rescue launched the nation’s first community-based emergency medical response program in partnership with Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and JCMC.

United Rescue volunteers, who are known as community-based emergency caregivers (CBECs), have been certified and equipped through a partnership with JCMC to respond to 911 medical calls and arrive within three minutes of the original call time. Their response time is faster than ambulance services and the first-aid treatment that the CBECs give before the ambulance arrives often saves the lives of the injured and wounded.

As part of the United Rescue program, each CBEC volunteer completes 60 hours of medical training and is then linked to a dispatch system using a GPS-based mobile app. When an emergency call is received, a central dispatch system locates the nearest and most appropriately equipped volunteers to a given emergency and dispatches them using the GPS-enabled mobile application.

The first 51 participants of the United Rescue program graduated in a ceremony at City Hall in Jersey City in November. Once the program was launched, United Rescue CBECs have contributed significantly to the community, including having participated in EMS rescue during the snowstorm that struck the city in January.

The average response time of ambulances in the United States is 11 minutes. With CBECs arriving to provide medical aid in under three minutes, the lives of many people can be saved even before ambulances arrive at the scene.

United Rescue has been making its first steps in the United States, beginning first in Jersey City and now set to open a branch in Detroit, after proving the concept of early-response EMS teams in Israel. The concept was developed by sister organization United Hatzalah which maintains 3000 volunteers across Israel, and treated 260,000 people on emergency calls last year alone. United Hatzalah is a national organization that utilizes volunteers from all walks of Israeli life including ultra-Orthodox, Modern Religious and secular Jews, as well as Arab and Druze EMS personnel. The organization maintains a fleet of ambucycles (ambulance-motorcycles) as well as ambulances and volunteers who arrive in private cars.

United Rescue has additional branches already operating internationally in Panama, Brazil, Argentina and Lithuania as well as the branches in Jersey City, Detroit and Israel. Currently the organization is looking to expand in Jersey City as well as begin operations in other cities around the United States.

“This award emphasizes the importance of such an EMS model in the United States. It also shows how possible and accessible it is to achieve life-saving results in the field of EMS for all those interested in adopting it in their own city,” said Dov Maisel, chief operations officer of the organization.

“United Rescue is very proud to have received this recognition as an innovator in the field of EMS. The values of United Rescue and United Hatzalah are empowering communities everywhere with the skills and innovative technologies and solutions that will enable them to fulfill the dream of bringing fast medical responses to any emergency in under three minutes. Communities worldwide can now experience and benefit from the expertise and innovation that Israel enjoys when it comes to life-saving EMS procedures.”

By Raphael Poch