Ochsner Flight Care

Ochsner Flight Care is the critical care transport service of Ochsner Health in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is a hospital programme that has treated and moved critically ill or injured patients of all ages since 1984.

Services

A Patient Flow Center runs around the clock. It takes requests and sends out transport for newborns, children and adults. The service uses helicopters and ground units, depending on what the patient needs. It offers bedside to bedside critical care transport and also responds to 911 calls in the region.

Ochsner Flight Care also helps run the Ochsner Pediatric Hotline. When a hospital calls, the center connects the caller with an Ochsner pediatric intensive care physician to plan treatment and transport to Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans.

Crew and aircraft

Each transport has two clinicians. They are registered nurses who also hold EMS practitioner licenses, or registered respiratory therapists. The site says each has three to five years of critical care or emergency experience. Doctors and specialists can join the flight team when needed. Metro Aviation provides the aircraft services under its Part 135 certificate. The site does not list aircraft counts.

The site lists crew certifications such as BLS, ACLS, PALS and the Neonatal Resuscitation Program, and says many team members are instructors. Its staff list includes a director of flight care, a chief flight nurse and a CAMTS coordinator.

Facts

• Type: hospital programme of Ochsner Health
• Licensed by the emergency medical authorities of Louisiana and Mississippi
• Accredited by CAMTS for rotor wing and surface critical care, according to the programme
• Aircraft services: Metro Aviation