Helicopters in Healthcare
A LifeLink III Helicopter Leaving a Hospital in Saint Paul, Minnesota
The term “Golden Hour” is commonly used to characterize the urgent need for the care of trauma patients. This term implies that morbidity and mortality are affected if care is not instituted within the first hour after injury, according to the National Institute of Health. A major trauma could be anything from a gunshot wound to a boating accident to a burn. Patients who are involved in a major trauma are ideally brought to the most suitable hospital, Level 1 Trauma Centers. Not all cities and towns have Level 1 Trauma centers. To get this certification, a hospital must have on call trauma surgeons and specific plans and care abilities to help the most critical of patients. Hospitals can also be certified as Level 2 and 3 Trauma Centers, which have less standards.
If you are injured in a major city, then you’ll likely be picked up by an ambulance and brought to the hospital. But many patients are injured in small towns or rural areas, where the local medical facilities might not be enough to treat them. Most of the time, a ground based ambulance isn’t fast enough to need this “Golden Hour” rule. That’s where the helicopter comes in.
The most common types used in the United States are Bell 206, 407, and 429, Eurocopter AS350, BK117, EC130, EC135, EC145, and the Agusta Westland 109.
Helicopters are versatile and can be activated very quickly. According to my flight medic contact, his company, LifeLink III has a 15 minute target from receiving the call for help to being in the air. He told me that they can do it in as little as 8 minutes if need be. He ran me through a possible scenario, and it goes a little like this:
Someone calls 911, let’s say near Bemidji, Minnesota (NW part of the state). There has just been a terrible snowmobile accident. An ambulance is dispatched from the local hospital. Most times, the ambulance crew will inform the hospital that the patient is beyond what the local hospital can care for, and should be brought to a higher level of care.
The hospital dispatcher calls LifeLink III, who provide the majority of the Air Ambulance service for Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. They operate 24/7/365. LifeLink’s dispatcher will then scramble a crew, consisting of 2 flight paramedics (sometimes one paramedic and one doctor) and two pilots. The helicopters are kept in tip top shape and always fueled and stocked with supplies. They just have to start the engine and take off.
The flight would be about 45 minutes, and they’d land on the hospital helipad. The hospital doctors would have the patient (hopefully) stabilized somewhat and on a stretched just inside of the hospital doors. The second they touch down, the patient is rushed onto the copter. A turn could be as little as 4 minutes, and the engine is left running. The helicopter is chock full of medical supplies, and they can provide virtually any kind of care, including administering life saving medication, intubate a patient, or, in some cases, do imaging.
In Minneapolis, LifeLinkIII takes patients to either North Memorial Hospital or Hennepin Health. They will land on the hospital’s helipad where a team of doctors will be waiting. The patient can be rushed into surgery almost instantly.
While the Golden Hour might not be met, it’s still much quicker then trying to transport a patient by ground. The Flight Paramedic told me “we can’t always save them. It’s not always possible. That’s the way things are. But, they have a better chance by air then they would by land or staying at the IPC (Initial Point of Care).”
Because of this sparsity, there isn’t much in terms of medical care. Nevertheless, people still get sick and hurt. An ambulance on wheels would take hours, potentially days to reach someone in the remote Outback. While a helicopter is faster than a ground vehicle, it might not have the range to make it 800+ miles into the wilderness and back. So, planes are the only logical option.
New South Wales Air Ambulance Service
Patients are transported by airplane to hospitals from either a local airport or… a road. Yes. A road. Long stretches of straight road can be used to land planes, even small jets. A land based ambulance can drive a patient to one of these road airstrips, and hand them off to a waiting airplane to be transferred to a higher level of care.
Medical helicopters are only going to get better and faster as technology advances. With the introduction of electric aircraft in the semi -near future, they could be getting greener too.
