First Responders
in General:
MDA operates a national Alert Crew Unit, comprised of volunteers and employees (who perform this role through volunteering) in order to maintain another layer of response in addition to the array of rescue vehicles, and also to provide medical response until arrival of the MDA team, or in order to assist the MDA team.
The Alert Crew Unit is composed of about 3,143 volunteers and employees: emergency medical technicians, senior medical technicians, paramedics and physicians throughout Israel. All Alert Crew Members are active volunteers who practically perform on – duty shifts in ambulances and mobile intensive care units of Magen David Adom.
Thanks to their widespread nationwide deployment and high availability, Alert Crew Members are called in (and indeed arrive) to events on times which are critical to saving lives.
Purposes:
Shorten MDA's response time to both emergency calls and routine calls, and improved the chances of survival of the sick and the injured throughout Israel.
Provide initial response to routine life - saving calls across Israel, as part of the MDA's emergency services array.
Provide assistance to MDA teams operating throughout Israel.
Rreinforce MDA's array in securing events, in both routine and emergency situations.
Reinforce MDA's array in mass-casualty incidents in routine, including preparedness for providing help in handling earthquake and in humanitarian activity.
Improve MDA's preparedness to war, emergency incidents and times of emergency.
Method:
Each Member of the Alert Crew is equipped with a first aid kit containing basic first aid equipment, resuscitation equipment and an oxygen kit.
151 MP3 type motorcycles are dispatched and attend to about 1,100 calls per month.
180 volunteers have semi - automatic defibrillators in their possession.
The National Alert Crew Unit includes 220 paramedics and physicians equipped with advanced resuscitation equipment, able to provide advanced aid, including medicinal treatment and field surgery when necessary.
Dispatching system:
When MDA Control Center receives a distress call, this call is automatically forwarded to a unique dispatching system integrated with Mirs two-way radios and an application. This system enables to locate Alert Crew Members who are located nearby the scene and send over to them the information regarding the event, as received in the MDA Control Center.
This dispatching system was developed exclusively by Magen David Adom and is the first of its kind in the world to connect the Control Center with the individual volunteer based on the volunteer's location and the event location.
The system is two-way and allows the Alert Crew Member to report back to the Control Center on his / her departure, on arrival at the event and about event information as found by him / her.
In addition, Control Centers use a messaging system utilizing beeper devices and sending SMSs in cases where additional aid is required of additional volunteer beyond those who were located.
Training and repeated training:
Magen David Adom regards the Organization's personnel as its main asset and acknowledges training and studies as devices of professional excellence, in order to improve the service provided by Magen David Adom. Alert Crew Members are required to undergo periodic professional training and in addition, the Organization encourages its personnel to continuously advance in their course of professional training.
Every day, Alert Crew Members respond to more than 200 distress calls. In many cases, Alert Crew Members are those who make the difference between loss of human life and saving the same. MDA invests and will go on investing significantly in improving its network of Alert Crew Members throughout Israel.
