Operations

The city of Louisville has a population of almost 750,000 citizens spread across nearly 400 square miles of urban neighborhoods, suburban communities, and rural farmland. EMS serves this entire, diverse community as the city’s primary 911 emergency medical care provider.

Emergency Care

LMEMS provides basic and advanced life support, responding to more than 120,000 calls for service annually. Using a system status deployment model, EMS continues to staff ambulances according to system demand. We also deploy a number of rapid response fly cars in the suburban areas.

Special Teams

LMEMS has several teams assembled to provide specialized service to the community.  In addition to their normal training, team members receive and maintain specialized training throughout the year to stay current on the latest developments in their specialty. 

Technology

LMEMS uses cutting-edge technology to provide our patients with the highest quality care. Whether  wirelessly transmitting important patient information to hospitals or tracking ambulances to analyze response capability, LMEMS uses real-time data to make clinical and operational decisions quickly and accurately, every day. 

Automatic Vehicle Locator

Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL) devices use Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to remotely track the location of our ambulances across the city. This technology has provided LMEMS with the capability to know where our resources are located in real-time and to ensure that the ambulance closest to the location of an emergency medical call for service is the unit that gets dispatched to respond to that call.  

Real-Time EKG

Some heart attack patients suffer a very serious type of heart attack called an ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction. Known more widely as STEMI's, these heart attacks can block blood flow for long periods of time and damage large sections of heart muscle. An electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG) can be used to diagnose STEMI's, and once a STEMI has been recognized, every second counts – a procedure to open the blocked artery and re-perfuse the heart with blood is critical to the patient’s survival.

In an effort to recognize STEMI heart attacks as soon as possible, LMEMS personnel can conduct EKG's in the field and wirelessly transmit the results to the nearest hospital equipped to perform the necessary procedures.  While the ambulance is en-route, the hospital’s cardiac team can prepare for immediate treatment in the cardiac catheterization lab.  Working with our hospital partners, our team goal is to consistently meet or beat the national standard, getting our STEMI patients into the cardiac catheterization lab less than 90 minutes from the point of first medical contact.