JERSEY CITY, N.J. — 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 ten 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.
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 CBEC’s 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 average response time of ambulances in the United States is 11 minutes. With CBEC’s arriving to provide medical aid in less than three minutes, the lives of many people can be saved 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 or 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.
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 lifesaving 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.