Hearings to Address Medical Helicopter Safety

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

Interesting article on the steps being taken for increased medical helicopter safety....

From the New York Times Website:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/business/03copter.html?em

[Guest alsfirefighter]

For one..when looking at this area...you can lower the risk by reducing the amount of needless and fruitless requests. Whether it be because of distance...as in you could throw a rock and hit the place or drive there faster....or for jumping the gun when no physical finding matches the MOI.

It would also help if the feelings and ego's could be dropped and have a QA/QI program that deals with medevac requests, that gains input from the ground crew, flight crew, medical staff and region personnel so we can get the medevac's where they are needed, when appropriately needed.

In some other areas of the country its sad to see what is occurring. Particularly with the medevac shopping as they called it. Channel 7 World News at 6:30 covered this briefly and they think that pressure to take jobs in some areas contributes to some of the increases in crashes and a high percentage of them were labeled as preventable. I can still see the face of one man who's wife was killed in a medevac crash and the pain he is still suffering as they were a couple my age and the fact that another agency turned down the job because of weather but her company took it. Thereby taking her life.

Remember its a tool to get people at distances to trauma centers. Most of us in Westchester can drive and get there the same time or a bit faster. Its not about being cool...or your ability to make the decision. Everytime you call for that helicopter you are putting at least 3 peoples lives at risk. Many of them who are our personal friends.

[helicopper 1,050]

For one..when looking at this area...you can lower the risk by reducing the amount of needless and fruitless requests. Whether it be because of distance...as in you could throw a rock and hit the place or drive there faster....or for jumping the gun when no physical finding matches the MOI.

It would also help if the feelings and ego's could be dropped and have a QA/QI program that deals with medevac requests, that gains input from the ground crew, flight crew, medical staff and region personnel so we can get the medevac's where they are needed, when appropriately needed.

In some other areas of the country its sad to see what is occurring. Particularly with the medevac shopping as they called it. Channel 7 World News at 6:30 covered this briefly and they think that pressure to take jobs in some areas contributes to some of the increases in crashes and a high percentage of them were labeled as preventable. I can still see the face of one man who's wife was killed in a medevac crash and the pain he is still suffering as they were a couple my age and the fact that another agency turned down the job because of weather but her company took it. Thereby taking her life.

Remember its a tool to get people at distances to trauma centers. Most of us in Westchester can drive and get there the same time or a bit faster. Its not about being cool...or your ability to make the decision. Everytime you call for that helicopter you are putting at least 3 peoples lives at risk. Many of them who are our personal friends.

Well said! I've long been a proponent of QA/QI reviews of all medevac calls to insure that those who use it as a crutch for their decision making or those who do it because its cool get some sort of oversight.

Just because it would take 30 minutes to drive to a trauma center doesn't make your patient a candidate for air transport.

But, we'll have to see what happens. Perhaps when the regulations on their use becomes so restrictive that you can't get them when you actually do need them, we'll all sit back and say "remember when we could get a medevac when we wanted one?".

Other sources on the story:

NTSB webpage on subject

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=...&id=6639826

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...oryId=100151419

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29004793/

[helicopper 1,050]

NTSB Looks at Chopper Fatalities

Records: Most air-ambulance crashes due to rule violations

Alan Levin

USA TODA

2009 Feb 3

Rule violations and risky behavior on air-ambulance flights are killing patients, medical crews and pilots, a USA TODAY review of federal accident records shows.

Five of the nine fatal helicopter crashes between December 2007 and October involved flying at night into poor weather that pilots were not prepared for, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The nine accidents killed 35 people, including six patients, the most deaths ever during a 12-month period in the industry.

http://www.jems.com/news_and_articles/news...violations.html

[Tapout 42]

"Two nurses were among experts who testified before the National Transportation Safety Board's four-day hearing on helicopter EMS safety, which was prompted by a record year in helicopter EMS accident fatalities."

For the full article:

http://include.nurse.com/article/20090209/...15/-1/frontpage