Maryland
EMS
News For All Emergency Medical Clinicians
Vol. 49 No. 5
June 2023
Maryland Celebrates National EMS Week agencies, answered nearly 1 million calls for help, and Maryland joined the country in celebrating “Where safely took more than 530,000 people of all ages to emerEmergency Care Begins” – the dedicated men and womgency departments throughout the state. Among them en who comprise the emergency medical services field are the sorts of specialty, intensive centers conceived by – in observance of the 49th annual National EMS Week, visionaries. They include: May 21-27, 2023. In 1974, President Gerald Ford design pediatric specialty nated the third week of centers, May as “National EMS n 14 perinatal centers, Week” to honor the n 39 stroke centers, hard work and dedican 24 cardiac intervention of EMS clinicians tion centers, and the important work n 2 burn centers, and they do in service to n 10 trauma centers, their communities. including the Primary This year also Adult Resource Center, marks the 50th anniversary of Maryland’s the R Adams Cowley EMS system. Created Shock Trauma Center, by the governor’s exin Baltimore. ecutive order in 1973, Each of these is the Maryland Institute a vital component of Scan this QR code to view a special of Emergency MediMaryland’s EMS sysEMS Week message from MIEMSS cine – the first orgatem, standing at the nized statewide EMS ready to deliver the Executive Director Dr. Ted Delbridge. system in the nation – most appropriate and would later evolve into sophisticated care to the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services patients in need. Systems (MIEMSS). Forward-thinking leaders worked At its core, however, the heart and soul of Marytirelessly to champion the ideas that lives and livelihoods land’s EMS system are emergency medical dispatchers could be saved if only there were coordinated, systematic and nearly 20,000 emergency medical responders, emerefforts to respond to sudden, unpredictable events such as gency medical technicians, cardiac rescue technicians, injury, acute shock, and cardiac arrest. The fruit of their and paramedics. Each EMS clinician represents 50 years vision, the Maryland EMS system, became an important of evolution, embodying a spirit and living a legacy to tool for their quest. improve the quality of life for Marylanders by empathetiToday, EMS is where emergency care begins. In See EMS Week page 16 2022, Maryland EMS, delivered by 29 jurisdictional