Want to share your EMS pictures and videos?

We are looking for pictures and videos to share on the blog and FB page.  If you have any send them to us at helicopterems@gmail.com.  So, get on it and send them in so we can review them and get them back out to all of our followers.  I'm still working on getting some articles ready to put out as well.

Hang in there and CLICK away!

Fly Safe and Keep your nose in the wind!

Safety and Security… Who is responsible?

           

            How secure is your Helicopter, your Base or your Quarters?  Crew members bring a lot of personal items to work with them, often expensive items.  We assume that coworkers and others will not take them.  That is unless it is something left in the refrigerator, right? 

            Our employers provide expensive equipment and tools that allow us to do our jobs, not to mention the controlled drugs we are responsible for keeping secure.   Again, often we assume that everyone is as honest as we are.  Is this a flaw in our character or belief system?  Are we setting ourselves, and our employer up to be victims? 

Patients have faith that we will be honest and respect their belongings and personal property, as well as their personal information.  And as a general rule this belief is fair and well deserved.  Hopefully, by the time the Air Crew team members get to the point of being in this type of position, those less than trustworthy have been weeded out.  All of us have gone through countless hours of training about HIPPA and understand the repercussions of violating the plainly written rules and laws, as well as the unspoken ones.

We need to remember that not everyone has the same moral compass that we do.  Generally, this is against our nature and a hard pill to swallow.  But, we need to remember that only we can protect ourselves, our property and our equipment. 

It is a horrible feeling to go to your aircraft and find a piece of equipment that is vital to the operation stolen.  It may put us out of service and prevent us from responding to a request for help.  An incident like this may cost a person their life.  Not to mention it will cost the company money in both lost revenue and replacement cost for the equipment. 

So, whose job is it to ensure security of our equipment?  Is it yours?  Is it mine?  Or is it the responsibility of the company we are working for?  My answer is simple.  It is all of the above.  All of us have to assume responsibility for security.  It is ours, in that we should use all reasonable means to secure our equipment at all times.  If for some reason there is a flaw in the system, it is our responsibility to point out the flaw and provide a suggestion or resolution for the flaw.  Once we have provided the insight, it becomes the responsibility of those we reported the issue to and ours to follow up on.  

I have the expectation that the company I work for will provide me with a secure facility with reasonable mechanisms to ensure safety and security.   It is my responsibility to use these to safeguard my personal property, as well as the company’s equipment and property.  We are all human and prone to falling short from time to time.  That is why we work as a team.  The idea is that if one of us falls short, the others will pick up on it and address the issue.  We do this all the time when we are operating but, when we are relaxed and don’t feel in danger this can cause a failure. 

Both SAFETY and SECURITY are the responsibility of each of us.  Only we can protect ourselves, our partners, and our employers from danger.  It does not matter where that danger is coming from, it is up to us. Let’s step it up and watch out for each other.

Your comments are welcome and encouraged!  

Press Release – FAA Issues Final Rule to Improve Helicopter Safety

The following is taken directly from the FAA website

http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=15795

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today issued a final rule that requires helicopter operators, including air ambulances, to have stricter flight rules and procedures, improved communications, training, and additional on-board safety equipment. The rule represents the most significant improvements to helicopter safety in decades and responds to government’s and industry’s concern over continued risk in helicopter operations. 

“This is a landmark rule for helicopter safety,” said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.  “These improvements will better prepare pilots and better equip helicopters, ensuring a higher level of safety for passengers and crew.”

All U.S. helicopter operators, including air ambulances, are required to use stricter flying procedures in bad weather. This will provide a greater margin of safety by reducing the probability of collisions with terrain, obstacles or other aircraft.

Within 60 days, all operators will be required to use enhanced procedures for flying in challenging weather, at night, and when landing in remote locations. Within three years, helicopter air ambulances must use the latest on-board technology and equipment to avoid terrain and obstacles, and within four years, they must be equipped with flight data monitoring systems.

“This rule is a significant advancement in helicopter safety,” said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta.  “This rule will help reduce risk and help pilots make good safety decisions through the use of better training, procedures, and equipment.”

Under the new rule, all Part 135 helicopter operators are required to:

• Equip their helicopters with radio altimeters.
• Have occupants wear life preservers and equip helicopters with a 406 MHz Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) when a helicopter is operated beyond power-off glide distance from the shore.
• Use higher weather minimums when identifying an alternate airport in a flight plan.
• Require that pilots are tested to handle flat-light, whiteout, and brownout conditions and demonstrate competency in recovery from an inadvertent encounter with instrument meteorological conditions.

In addition, under the new rule, all air ambulance operators are required to:

• Equip with Helicopter Terrain Awareness and Warning Systems (HTAWS).
• Equip with a flight data monitoring system within four years.
• Establish operations control centers if they are certificate holders with 10 or more helicopter air ambulances.
• Institute pre-flight risk-analysis programs.
• Ensure their pilots in command hold an instrument rating.
• Ensure pilots identify and document the highest obstacle along the planned route before departure.
• Comply with Visual Flight Rules (VFR) weather minimums, Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) operations at airports/heliports without weather reporting, procedures for VFR approaches, and VFR flight planning.
• Conduct the flight using Part 135 weather requirements and flight crew time limitation and rest requirements when medical personnel are on board.
• Conduct safety briefings or training for medical personnel.

Since August 2004, the FAA has promoted initiatives to reduce risk for helicopter air ambulance operations (See FAA Fact Sheet). While accidents did decline in the years following that effort, 2008 proved to be the deadliest year on record with five accidents that claimed 21 lives. The FAA examined helicopter air ambulance accidents from 1991 through 2010 and determined 62 accidents that claimed 125 lives could have been mitigated by today's rule. While developing the rule, the FAA considered 20 commercial helicopter accidents from 1991 through 2010 (excluding air ambulances) that resulted in 39 fatalities. From 2011 through 2013, there were seven air ambulance accidents resulting in 19 fatalities and seven commercial helicopter accidents that claimed 20 lives.

The estimated cost of the final rule in present value for the air ambulance industry is $224 million with a total benefit of $347 million over 10 years. The cost for other commercial operators is $19 million with a total benefit of $83 million over 10 years.  There is no cost for any operators to use new Class G airspace weather minimums for visual flying but the benefit is $147 million over 10 years.

The rule responds to the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 and National Transportation Safety Board recommendations."

Subjects and goals for Helicopter EMS: As the Rotor Turns.

What’s this thing all about?

            That was probably the first thing you asked yourself when you saw this blog.  A lot of thought has gone into deciding to start this blog.  I will just touch on some of the ideas that will be in upcoming posts.

            I have found myself frustrated with some aspects of the HEMS(Helicopter Emergency Medical Services) environment and believe there are others who have similar concerns.  My intention is to keep this blog completely POSITIVE and only point out problems or observations with suggestions to make them better.  I invite positive and productive comments and feedback.  Any derogatory or overtly negative comments will be removed to maintain the positive nature of this blog.

            Safety is one of the biggest subjects I want to keep at the top of this blog.  I have been working in HEMS for many years and have been lucky more than once.  My desire is to help others learn from my experiences and mishaps.  Hearing about incidents in our industry concerns me, whether it is about an aircraft, ground ambulance, or anything else where one of our own was hurt.  This happens entirely to often and is almost always preventable. 

            Education, training, and clinical experiences are other topics that I feel are important.  It is so easy to become complacent.  I know this from my own experience.  Our shifts are either really busy and we do not feel like training or they are slow and we get into the “I’ll do it tomorrow” way of thinking.  I am hoping that we can help to motivate each other and share some good learning opportunities.

            Stress Management also comes to mind as something I would like to discuss. However, I am no expert at this and will be looking for any suggestions you may have to help with this topic.  I will be doing more research before I write about this subject.

            As you can see, I have a long list of subjects worthy of chatting about.  I do plan of posting a bio about myself, and how I came to be where I am.  I would love to hear about all of you.

            Check back often and keep in touch!!  

To all the Critical Care Transport Nurses today is your day!!  I hope that it is a great one!

Best office window on the planet!!

Those guys and gals with the corner office have nothing on me.  My office has windows with a 270 degree view that is always changing.  Moving along at 150 knots and 500 feet above the ground, it is impressive.  Some days we are flying over the desert and others days we are going over the top of the Rockies.

If you don't like the view just wait a minute or two and it will be different.  

The only bad part to having all of these views is that my partner and I often miss them, because we are working fast and furious to keep people alive.  That's what we do....  That's what we live for...  That is why we put our family's and lives on hold and sometimes our butts on the line.