UC Davis Fire Department’s Health 34 Program Featured on State and National Stages

The UC Davis Fire Department’s Health 34 mobile campus response program is gaining recognition on both state and national stages through presentations to the California Higher Education Basic Needs Alliance, or CHEBNA, and the National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation, or NCEMSF. UC Davis Fire Department Medical Director Dr. Lisa Mills was invited to present on UC Davis’ leadership in developing innovative, student-centered responses to campus wellness.  

At the CHEBNA conference, Mills presented alongside the UC Office of the President, emphasizing the benefits of a unified campus response program for basic needs. Mills demonstrated how a single point of contact can streamline access, allowing students to more easily navigate both basic needs resources and mental health support. She also underscored the importance of a 24/7/365 program to ensure students receive help whenever they need it. 

“Rather than creating a parallel or siloed response system,” Mills explained, “Health 34 was intentionally designed to integrate mobile crisis response principles with mobile integrated health strategies to serve all of our community’s resource navigation needs.”

At the 2026 NCEMSF conference, Mills highlighted the development and implementation of Health 34, a modern evolution of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) within the UC Davis Fire Department. 

“Health 34 represents the operationalization of a next-generation EMS model—one built around the principle of delivering the right resources at the right time to meet the actual needs of a community,” said Mills. “In university environments, community support increasingly involves behavioral health resources, welfare checks, and complex social stressors. Traditional law enforcement or ambulance-based responses are not optimally matched to these situations. Health 34 emerged directly in response to that gap.” 

With training in therapeutic response, crisis de-escalation and campus resources, the Health 34 providers are prepared to serve the UC Davis community.  

To demonstrate the program's impact, data from the program shows strong campus engagement, with call volume growing from 738 contacts in 2023–24 to more than 1,000 in 2024–25, reflecting increasing demand for Health 34 services. 

Mills' presentations highlighted the range of services provided, with many interactions centered on general support, mental health assistance and helping individuals navigate available campus resources. The presentations also included insights from the program’s first two years of operation, highlighting how Health 34 supports students experiencing mental health concerns, stress and other challenges while connecting them to campus resources.

This growth is also reflected in the way students choose to access support. Health 34 provides a wide range of services, offering both immediate phone support and in-person response to meet students' needs. Health 34 continues to innovate in campus community response and safety by providing the right resource at the right time in the right place.

Health 34 is available 24/7 to anyone on the UC Davis campus. 

• To connect with a member of the Health 34 team, call (530) 754-3434.
• Learn more about Health 34

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