About the EMS System

The Kalamazoo County Medical Control Authority (KCMCA) is the agency responsible for coordinating and overseeing the EMS system and is physically housed within WMed Emergency Medicine. This partnership allows for very close interaction between residents, faculty and the EMS system’s staff. Through the hard work and dedication of our EMS personnel and a highly effective EMS system design, cardiac arrest survival in Kalamazoo County is among the highest in the nation.

In the City of Kalamazoo, all Public Safety Officers are trained to the Medical First Responder (MFR) level and are licensed by the State of Michigan to provide pre-hospital medical care.

The Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety staffs seven licensed MFR vehicles 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Equipped with Basic Life Support (BLS) equipment, including Automatic External Defibrillators (AED’s) – Medical First Responders assess and stabilize patients prior to being transported to an area hospital by Life EMS.