Department Overview

The Wake County Department of Emergency Medical Services is responsible for the provision of EMS throughout Wake County. It is composed of the Wake County EMS Division, and three contracted EMS provider agencies – Apex EMS, Cary Area EMS, and Eastern Wake EMS.

The Department of EMS is headed by J. Brent Myers, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.E.P., who is both the department head and the medical director for the Wake County EMS System.

The system responded to 78,615 requests for service in FY 2010, and transported more than 65,000 patients.

Among the system’s major achievements have been a nationally recognized cardiac arrest save rate, implementation of a pioneering ICE (induced hypothermia by EMS) protocol for post-cardiac arrest patients, and system-wide closest-vehicle dispatching using GPS-based automatic vehicle location and the MARVLIS in-vehicle navigation system.