Midair Medicine – The role of critical care flight personnel

Throughout the years, healthcare professionals have been striving to provide the most effective medical care possible to patients at all times. Since it is just not possible to keep a physician with a patient at all times, nurses have been the primary care givers to patients, acting as an extension of the physician. However, there are times when even a nurse may not be available to treat the sick or injured. Such times may include transport times from one facility to another and emergency settings apart from the hospital. These can be critical times for patients in need, and although emergency responders are capable of providing excellent care, there is still a need for trained nurses in these instances.

In the early years of emergency medicine, professionals realized a need to bring healthcare to the patient in need. During times of emergencies, this meant that effective healthcare must be given to the patient prior to reaching the hospital setting. Ambulances were born to fulfill this need. Although early ambulance services could provide little more than just a ride to the hospital at first, they quickly became highly trained and skilled professionals that could administer life saving medicine to those in need. Soon, healthcare facilities found a new use for ambulance service providers. By using them as a means of transporting patients between healthcare facilities, they could maintain some standard of healthcare for patients, even when they were away from the hospital or treatment facility.

Evolutionary Changes in Healthcare

Several years ago, emergency services took cue from the military by providing emergency and inter-facility patient transportation by air. They began to use fixed and rotating winged aircraft for these transports, as a way of transporting patients faster and with fewer hazards and less movement of patients due to poor road conditions. Now, helicopter transports are even commonly used as ambulances that provide on-scene care to emergency patients.

As of 2007, every state in the U.S. utilizes some sort of air medical transportation. Most states have helicopter and fixed wing service based in them, and in many instances they have several bases throughout the state. By creating air transport bases similar to the way fire departments and ambulance services have done, these services can position themselves throughout a state and provide coverage to even the most remote areas. Often times, air medical services are even dispatched along side land based ambulances and fire departments. This allows for a greater number of highly trained emergency workers to be at the aid of a patient, as well as greatly improve the transport times of those patients. Many times, an air ambulance can transport the patient to a level 1 trauma center in less time than it would take a land based service to move the patient to a small rural hospital.

Aside from transporting patients from rural emergency scenes to a hospital, air ambulance services are also being utilized by medical facilities. In many rural areas, hospitals are not equipped to handle large numbers of patients, as well as patients with serious or chronic illnesses, such as cardiac and respiratory diseases. In these cases, it is necessary for that hospital to make arrangements and have the patient moved to a more qualified hospital. For many years, land based ambulance providers have taken on this responsibility, but now air ambulance providers can take this on and greatly improve the amount of time it would take for the transport.

Skilled Personnel Taking on the Challenge

The crew of an air ambulance or air medical transport team usually consists of 3 personnel. The pilot, at least one nurse, in many instances a paramedic, and in some services they even carry a physician on board. Although the pilots are not usually trained in extensive medical procedures, some services require minimal emergency medical training. Other personnel, such as nurses, paramedics, and physicians are of course extensively trained in a vast assortment of medical practices. Aside from the routine training that each of these individuals must already obtain to become licensed or certified, they must also acquire specialized training in order to work onboard the aircraft and handle the many possible problems they encounter with patients while in transport. Since the aircraft is usually quite confined, they must also learn to perform these procedures with limited work space, and personnel.

Formal training for these individuals is becoming more and more common. Since air transport is rapidly growing across the United States, educational facilities are being set up in order to teach the individuals what they will need to know. Such courses may include Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS), Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Neonatal Advanced Life Support (NALS), Critical Care Transport (CCT), Advanced Burn Life Support (ABLS), Pre-Hospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS), Trauma nursing Core Course (TNCC), and even more courses are being created and taught specifically geared toward air medical personnel, such as the new FP-C (Flight Paramedic Certification).

As the number of flight services increase, so will the demand for trained individuals to serve on them. This will pave the way for new training courses, as well as training centers specifically geared toward the training of these personnel.

Online training for paramedics and nurses

There is a need now, more than ever before for medical training that is convenient and affordable. Accredited colleges and universities have stepped up to fill this need. By offering courses in EMS Management and many various nursing courses completely online, educational institutions are providing students with the ability to attend these courses while maintaining their current employment and still having time for their families. Furthering your education no longer means spending all of your time on a campus and away from the ones you love.

Visit some of the available courses that fit your need. Feel free to request information from any and all courses that interest you. In no time at all, you could be working in a rewarding career that will keep you interested for the rest of your life!

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