title: Tactical emergency medical support programs: a comprehensive statewide survey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Specially trained tactical emergency medical support (TEMS) personnel provide support to law enforcement special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams. These programs benefit law enforcement agencies, officers, suspects, and citizens. TEMS programs are increasingly popular, but there are wide variations in their organization and operation and no recent data on their prevalence.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We sought to measure the current prevalence and specific characteristics of TEMS programs in a comprehensive fashion in a single southeastern state.
  
  
  METHODS
  North Carolina emergency medical services (EMS) systems have county-based central EMS oversight; each system was surveyed by phone and e-mail. The presence and selected characteristics of TEMS programs were recorded. U.S. Census data were used to measure the population impact of the programs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All of the 101 EMS systems statewide were successfully contacted. Thirty-three counties (33%) have TEMS programs providing medical support to 56 local law enforcement agencies as well as state and federal agencies. TEMS programs tend to be located in more populated urban and suburban areas, serving a population base of 5.9 million people, or 64% of the state's population. Tactical medics in the majority of these programs (29/33; 88%) are not sworn law enforcement officers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Approximately one-third of county-based EMS systems in North Carolina have TEMS programs. These programs serve almost two-thirds of the state's population base, using primarily nonsworn tactical medics. Comparison with other regions of the country will be useful to demonstrate differences in prevalence and program characteristics. Serial surveillance will help track trends and measure the growth and impact of this growing subspecialty field.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27157, USA. wbozeman@wfubmc.edu
authors.forename: William P
authors.initials: WP
authors.lastname: Bozeman
authors.forename: Benjamin M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Morel
authors.forename: Timothy D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Black
authors.forename: James E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Winslow
mesh_terms: D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D035846:Law Enforcement / Q000379:methods*; D009657:North Carolina; D013038:Specialization