October 22, 1999

Boston MedFlight added an airplane to its fleet of critical care transport vehicles Oct. 18. The addition will increase MedFlight’s service area to include the entire eastern seaboard of the United States, the Maritime Provinces of Canada, the Caribbean Islands and Bermuda. Boston MedFlight also will be able to transport patients from hospitals back to their home communities or rehabilitation centers outside of MedFlight’s current service area.

Boston MedFlight is a critical-care air and ground transport service designed to extend the services of the major Boston hospitals to the citizens of New England.

"For example, we transport many vacationers from Cape Cod and the Islands to Boston hospitals, where they receive the best medical care available," says Janet Orf, RN, a critical-care transport nurse and eight-year veteran of the MedFlight Program. "Once their treatment is complete, however, Boston MedFlight has been unable to return them to their homes or to out-of-state rehabilitation centers. With the addition of an airplane, Boston MedFlight is creating a complete door-to-door, state-of-the-art, medical transportation system."

According to Alasdair Conn, MD, chief of Emergency Medicine at the MGH, airplane flights are a quick, cost-effective method for reaching patients outside of Greater Boston. "On our first day with the plane, we transported an emergency cardiac patient from Nantucket to the MGH. The airplane flights will be especially good when time is critical, for example, to get burn victims from the Mid-Atlantic states to Shriners Burns Hospital," he says. The aircraft will be staffed seven days a week by a crew specially trained in transport medicine.

The airplane also will be used when the weather is not suitable for helicopters. "We have very strict weather guidelines for the helicopter program," explains Suzanne Wedel, MD, executive director of Boston MedFlight. "There are some helicopter requests for patient transports that we cannot complete because the weather conditions fall below our safety minimums. The MedFlight airplane, however, will be able to accept some of those requests."

To find out more about Boston MedFlight and its services, visit the website at www.bostonmedflight.org or call (781) 863-2213. To arrange patient transport, call Boston MedFlight’s 24-hour Communications Center at (800) 223-8998.