Specialized Medical Assistance Response Team

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A Bit About SMART

The SUNY at Buffalo, School of Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine in cooperation with the Erie County Medical Center and the Erie County Department of Emergency Services has created a Specialized Medical Assistance Response Team (SMART). SMART members including emergency physicians, physician assistants, nurses, paramedics and other emergency support staff are available to augment the care provided by local emergency medical services (EMS), fire and law enforcement agencies when dealing with prolonged or unusual out-of-hospital patient care situations. SMART is not a primary 911 responder and only responds to incidents upon request for advanced emergency medical assistance. Some typical SMART activities are to:

• Provide on-scene triage during prolonged or unusual incidents (e.g., disasters, MCI)
• Provide advanced/specialized patient care during unusual incidents (e.g., disasters, building collapse, patient entrapment, MCI, etc.)
• Provide on-scene medical direction during prolonged or unusual incidents (e.g., disaster, MCI)
• Serves as an additional component of the Erie County Disaster Response Team
• Provide specialized tactical emergency medical support to federal (i.e., FBI) and local S.W.A.T. teams during routine operations and training missions
• Provide medical direction, medical support and patient care assistance during community/civic events throughout Western New York (e.g., Rich Stadium events, festivals, etc.)
• Provide prehospital educational opportunities to the SUNY @ Buffalo Emergency Medicine Residents
• Provide a means of conducting advanced prehospital care research

For incident response, the Specialized Medical Response Team utilizes a 1998 Ford Expedition equipped with warning devices (lights & siren), communications equipment, a global positioning satellite navigation system, and all necessary advanced life support medical equipment (e.g., chest tubes, defibrillator, amputation saws, central IV lines, advanced airway management equipment, medications, etc.) A full complement of personal protective equipment (e.g., turnout gear, jump-suits, body armor, etc.) is also stocked on the response vehicle for use by the team members.

SMART is available for response 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Requests for a response by SMART should be directed to Erie County MERS Control (at 898-3696) who is responsible for dispatching the SMART team via a digital paging system. All services rendered by SMART are provided to patients at no charge.

SMART-1 1998 Ford Expedition

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