Office of the Medical Director

Office of the Medical Director

The EMS Medical Director is responsible for all medical aspects of pre-hospital patient care. The Medical Director has the authority to approve the level of pre-hospital care which may be rendered by each of the department’s members, establish and monitor compliance with field performance guidelines, and establish and monitor training standards.

Our staff of physicians provide on-line and/or on-scene medical direction for all critical patients 24-hours per day. All of the medical staff assist in the development and revision of protocols, medical standing orders, and continuing education programs as well as addressing equipment and legislative issues.

The City of Houston is a six-hundred plus square mile area spread out over a 1000 square mile region in Southeast Texas. It has a night-time population of nearly two million people and over three million daytime population. One out of every ten citizens utilize EMS. Each year there are over 300,000 EMS incidents. On the average, EMS responds to a citizen every minute and 45 seconds.

Each EMS response is made by one or more HFD apparatus. Fire engines and ladder trucks provide initial response to low-acuity calls and a rapid medical first response to life-threatening emergencies.  HFD utilizes 103 transport units to provide advanced care and get people to the hospital.  Forty-six of these are staffed by two paramedics and provide Advanced Life Support (ALS) capabilities, with eight functioning in a “Dual” capacity as either ALS or BLS depending on the call. The remaining fifty-six transport units are Basic Life Support (BLS), and staffed by two EMTs.  Ten EMS supervisors provide oversight, training, guidance, and ALS experience to the system.