Collegiate-based emergency medical systems (CBEMS) are a unique model for the delivery of prehospital care. The National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation (NCEMSF) was founded to serve as a resource for CBEMS groups. The purpose of this investigation is to describe the current state of CBEMS organizations.

The NCEMSF maintains a Web-based, data collection system to gather data on CBEMS organizations. Collegiate-based emergency medical services are defined as emergency medical services in a university or college campus setting. The abstracted data from the NCEMSF registry were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

The NCEMSF registry contained data on 175 groups, and 145 groups were identified as providing CBEMS. The levels of service provided by the groups were: (1) first responder, 8.3%; (2) basic life support (BLS) 66.2%; (3) intermediate life support (ILS) 4.8%; (4) advanced life support (ALS), 9.7%; and (5) combination BLS/ALS, 8.3%. Transport capabilities were provided by 31.7% of the CBEMS. The average response time was estimated at 2.6 minutes (95% confidence interval (CI), 2.35–2.91 minutes). Early defibrillation using a automated external defibrillator (AED) or ALS was available by 75.9% (95% CI, 68.8–83.0) of CBEMS. Service to the community beyond the campus was provided by 21.3% of CBEMS groups. Forty-eight percent of the services operate 24 hours/day, seven days/week. The average call volume per year was 568 responses (95% CI, 315–820), and the groups averaged 29 (95% CI, 25–34) members. During the past five years, an average of 4.3 new CBEMS groups were formed per year. Eleven of the CBEMS are based at international schools.

A growing number of golfers are senior citizens, and it may be predicted that the number of golf-related medical emergencies, including the incidence of cardiac arrest, will increase. This study was designed to survey the level of preparedness of golf courses in Southeastern Pennsylvania to respond to cardiac arrest among their members.

A telephone survey of all of the 180 golf courses in the area was conducted to determine their type (public/private), volume in rounds per year, presence of automated external defibrillator (AED) devices, number of employees, and percentage of employees with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training. Participants also were asked to estimate the time needed to reach the farthest point on their course in order to estimate a maximum time to the application of an AED device.

A total of 131 of 180 golf courses completed the survey (53 private, 78 public) for an overall response rate of 73%. Private courses reported a greater average number of employees with CPR training [private = 9.1, public = 3.6; p = 0.001] and in AED presence [public = 9%, private = 58.5%; p = 0.0001]. Public courses support a higher volume of play than do private courses [public = 32,000, private = 24,000; p = 0.001], yet have far fewer employees [public = 25, private = 44; p = 0.004]. The longest time necessary to reach the most remote point on the course was between four and five minutes in all courses. Analysis was performed using the Student's t-test and Pearson's Chi-square as appropriate.

Neither public nor private golf courses are well equipped to respond to cardiac arrest, but outcomes on public courses likely are to be far worse.