Air medical services
[7] When the same authors looked at health outcomes in Cornwall and London they found no evidence that the attendance of an air ambulance (HEMS) service improved survival in trauma patients.[7] Effective use of helicopter services for trauma depends on the ground responder's ability to determine whether the patient's condition warrants air medical transport.[13] Factors associated with fatal crashes of medical transport helicopters include flying at night and during bad weather, and postcrash fires.The first recorded British ambulance flight took place in 1917 in Ottoman Empire when a soldier in the Camel Corps who had been shot in the ankle was flown to hospital in a de Havilland DH9 in 45 minutes.Exploration of the idea continued, however, and France and the United Kingdom used fully organized air ambulance services during the African and Middle Eastern Colonial Wars of the 1920s.By 1969, in Vietnam, the use of specially trained medical corpsmen and helicopter air ambulances led U.S. researchers to determine that servicemen wounded in battle had better rates of survival than motorists injured on California freeways.In northern Canada, Australia, and in Scandinavian countries, remote, sparsely populated settlements are often inaccessible by road for months at a time, or even year-round.Early in aviation history, many of these communities began to rely on civilian "bush" pilots, who fly small aircraft and transport supplies, mail, and visiting doctors or nurses.Bush pilots probably performed the first civilian air ambulance trips, albeit on an ad hoc basis—but clearly, a need for these services existed.The second program, the Military Assistance to Safety and Traffic (MAST) system, was established in Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio in 1969.This was an experiment by the Department of Transportation to study the feasibility of using military helicopters to augment existing civilian emergency medical services.In Ontario, Canada, the air ambulance program began in 1977, and featured a paramedic-based system of care, with the presence of physicians or nurses being relatively unusual.With the increased number of car accidents in 1979 on highways, the Yugoslavian government made a decision to buy new or redistribution of use of old helicopters.Such services may focus on critical care patient transport, support ground-based EMS on scenes, or may perform a combination of these roles.However, the government almost always takes a 'hands-off' approach to the actual running of the system, relying instead on local managers with subject matter (physicians and aviation executives) expertise.In these cases, the aircraft may be operated by another government or quasi-government agency and made available to EMS for air ambulance service when required.In most cases, while the sponsor receives advertising exposure in exchange for funding, they take a 'hands-off' approach to daily operations, relying instead on subject matter specialists.This organization is widely credited for having created the political climate that made the helicopter industry and National Health Service recognise the enormous contribution charities make to trauma care in the United Kingdom.The AAA now publishes Best Practice Guidance on a range of operational and clinical functions and provides a code of conduct that all full members, both ambulance services and charities must uphold.Memorial Hermann Life Flight is a not-for-profit hospital-based critical care air ambulance service in Houston, Texas, USA.[37] Memorial Hermann Life Flight operates from the John S. Dunn Helistop, one of the busiest helipads in the world,[37] with space for four helicopters.Each operates aircraft staffed by physicians, nurses, and corpsmen/technicians, and each can provide long-distance transport with full medical support to dozens of patients simultaneously.However, in recent years, exceptions to the "military-only" rule have grown with the need to quickly transport patients to facilities that provide higher levels of care or to repatriate individuals.Assessment skills tend to be considerably higher, and, particularly on inter-facility transfers, permit the inclusion of functions such as reading x-rays and interpretation of lab results.The challenges in most air ambulance operations, particularly those involving helicopters, are the high ambient noise levels and limited amounts of working space, both of which create significant issues for the provision of ongoing care.In 2006, the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that many air ambulances crashes were avoidable,[51] eventually leading to the improvement of government standards and CAMTS accreditation.For example, the Coverage Policy Manual for Arkansas Blue Cross BlueShield, a not-for-profit mutual insurance company, specifies the circumstances in which costs for air medical services are covered.[6] The need for a Physician/Nurse combination has diminished with more protocol and evidence-based applications for care by nurses and other clinicians[6] and so the inclusion of respiratory therapists in all modes of air transport is becoming more prominent.The flight nurse is a member of an aeromedical evacuation crew on helicopters and airplanes, providing in-flight management and care for all types of patients.Civilian flight nurses may work for hospitals, federal, state, and local governments, private medical evacuation firms, fire departments or other agencies.
Sécurité CivileFrench Minister of the Interiorfixed-wing aircrafthelicoptersaeromedical evacuationrescueWorld War Imedical evacuationJohn FlynnFlying Doctor Servicegeneral practitionersemergency medical servicesFixed wingair ambulancesKoreanVietnammajor traumagolden hourtrauma centerEurocopter EC 145SwitzerlandRega air rescue serviceAgustaWestland AW139helicoptermedical emergencyambulancemedicationsventilatorsstretchersmedical evacuation (MEDEVAC)casualty evacuation (CASEVAC)What Could Possibly Go Wrong?Bell H-13MEDEVACKorean WarEmergency Medical ServiceSiege of ParisFirst World WarOttoman EmpireCamel Corpsde Havilland DH9Mad MullahSomalilandAirco DH.9ASpanish Civil WarNazi GermanySecond World WarSikorsky R-4Burma during WW2First Indochina Warhospital shipscorpsmenparamedicsUS militaryUH-60 Black HawkIraq WarBell 412Mojave, CaliforniaoutbackRoyal Flying Doctor ServiceMarie MarvingtHighlands and Islands Medical ServiceHighland ScotlandWorld War IISaskatchewan Air Ambulancefederal grantDepartment of TransportationBell 427South Bohemian, Czech RepublicHarlachingSaint ChristopherAcademic conferenceFort RuckerAlabamaFlight For LifeAlouette IIISFR Yugoslaviahighwaysmilitaryciviliangovernmentrotary-wingfixed-wingEurocopter EC155BHong Kong Government Flying ServicePolandClevelandCuyahoga CountyScottish Ambulance ServiceWiltshire Air AmbulanceAmbulance ServicepoliceLondon's Air AmbulanceMD 900European UnionLondonVirginGermanyNetherlandsAustraliaNew ZealandWestpac BankMi-8AMTMemorial Hermann Life FlightHoustonUnited States Air ForceLuftwaffeRoyal Air ForceMyndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskapZhukovskyRussiasafety of emergency medical services flightsambient noise levelsauscultationBell 206Eurocopter AS350Agusta Westland 109MD ExplorerLearjet 35 and 36Learjet 31King Air 90King Air 200Pilatus PC-12Piper CheyennecharityHelicopter Emergency Medical Service