FARE Initiates Air-Medical and Critical-Care-Transport Safety Campaign

ANAHEIM, CA – A philanthropic campaign aimed at improving safety in air-medical and critical-care transport is being introduced at the Heli-Expo conference this week by the Foundation for Air-Medical Research & Education (FARE), the charitable arm of the Association of Air Medical Services.

"A key goal of the FARE-based safety campaign is to raise funds that will target education and leadership initiatives as well as technical equipment advances aimed at improving medevac helicopter safety," said FARE Chair Kevin Hutton, MD, FACEP, CHC. "That is why we have fostered this initiative – because safety is our top priority, and because reducing accidents down to zero is our chief safety objective."

Specific campaign initiatives include:

• A safety management school. Similar to the Medical Transport Leadership Institute (MTLI), this school focuses on basic and advanced safety management and leadership. The facilitators will be recognized experts in their field, and the curriculum will be challenging, interactive and comprehensive.
• An annotated bibliography of safety literature. The compendium will include relevant and timely critical-care transport safety information available through a searchable online database.
• A Request for Proposal to conduct critically-needed research on human factors affecting the implementation of civilian air-medical night-vision-goggles (NVGs).
• A white paper regarding current best practices in safety for air-medical transport. The paper will have a special focus on safety equipment, such as Helicopter Terrain Awareness Warning Systems (HTAWS).
• A mobile integrated-safety trainer simulator. This portable unit will include all aspects of air-medical services (including aviation safety, medical/patient safety, and communications) and will be transported by truck to communities across the country for on-site safety training.
• An online education and training tool focused on the appropriate utilization of air medical transport services. Such a tool would be designed to provide emergency department medical residents with a better understanding of the appropriate utilization of air medical transport.

A further goal of the campaign is to secure donations and grants for safety technology enhancements (such as NVGs), as well as grants for training.