Operational Medicine/Physician Response Team

The AMR Physician Response Team (PRT) began with residents, EMS fellows and local EMS personnel augmenting the area’s emergency response system by providing on-scene medical control and the ability to provide advanced medical care not routinely performed in the prehospital environment. Our history of field response began in 1996 as a collaboration between Erie County Medical Center and Erie County Emergency Services.

In 2022, our department expanded our relationship with AMR to provide vehicle coverage for a new Physician Response Team (PRT).  Through the AMR PRT, residents have an opportunity to gain training and experience in Operational Medicine. During the EMS rotation, residents respond to a variety of local operational missions with EMS Faculty or Fellows.  Further opportunities also exist through the EMS track of the residency.

For incident response, we utilize five (5) Ford Explorers equipped with emergency warning devices (lights & siren), communications equipment, a global positioning satellite navigation system, and all necessary and specialized medical equipment (e.g., chest tubes, defibrillator, central IV lines, advanced airway management equipment, medications, etc.)  The primary response consists of a minimum of one physician (EMS Fellow, EMS resident, or EMS attending) and AMR EMTs and Paramedics.

Some typical AMR PRT activities are to:

• provide on-scene triage during prolonged or unusual incidents (e.g., disasters, MCI)
• provide advanced/specialized patient care during unusual incidents (e.g., disasters, building collapse, patient entrapment, MCI, etc.)
• provide on-scene medical direction during prolonged or unusual incidents (e.g., disaster, MCI)
• provide medical direction, medical support and patient care assistance during community/civic events throughout Western New York (e.g., New Era Field events, festivals, etc.)
  
• provide prehospital educational opportunities to the emergency medicine residents
• provide a means of conducting advanced prehospital care research

The AMR PRT is available for response 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Requests for a response should be directed to AMR Dispatch. All physician services rendered are provided to patients at no charge.