Globalmed Air Medical Services 

Air Medical Services



Air Medical Trainings & Lectures

History of Air Medical Transport

  • The hot air balloon period.
  • Transport by bi-plane without observation.
  • Multi transport by remodeled military airplanes.
  • Transport by helicopter during war times.


Operations

  • Important insurances to have.
  • Choice of medical personnel according to qualification and scope of care.
  • Medical crew introduction.
  • Initial training programme.
  • Necessary medical equipment.
  • Medication. How much to order, how to stock, how to check easily.
  • Fit-to-Fly or Evacuation? Impact on choice of aircraft and composition of crew
  • Familiarisation with pilots' workload and duty times.
  • Familiarisation with airplane and emergency equipment.
  • Loading of the equipment. What to keep where.
  • Safe loading and unloading of a patient.
  • Procedures in the cabin. Your role in between of cabin crew and medical passenger.
  • Communication with the office, the insurance/assistance company, the referring and receiving hospitals, and the ground ambulance companies.
  • Documentation requirements.
  • Travel documents, visa, vaccinations, health checks.


Altitude Physiology

  • The atmosphere.
  • The gas laws with calculations.
  • The gas laws and the human body.
  • The gas laws and your equipment.
  • The stressors of flight influencing your functionality.
  • The stressors of flight influencing patient health.
  • Pressurisation and (rapid) decompression, TUC.
  • The different types of hypoxia.
  • Decompression sickness.
  • How to counteract the negative effects of flying on your patient.
  • The different environmental conditions for patients in bigger airplanes compared to smaller jets.


Intensive Care / Critical Care Transfers

  • Necessary qualification of personnel for safe transfers.
  • Necessary equipment.
  • The importance of working space.
  • Which information to collect before flying?
  • Which communication to be done before flying?
  • Which medical procedures to be done at which phase of the transfer.
  • Necessary standard of ground ambulances.
  • Documentation.
  • Legal aspects.


Mechanical Ventilation

  • Basics of oxygenation and ventilation.
  • Basic settings of a mechanical ventilator.
  • Advanced settings of a mechanical ventilator.
  • Different (international) ventilator modes and how they differ.
  • Actual ICU ventilation modes.
  • What you can see from ventilation curves and loops.
  • The importance of capnography, even in non-ventilated patients.
  • Critical care transport ventilators and their specifications.
  • Which critical care transport ventilators function well at altitude?
  • Which critical care transport ventilators can ventilate a sick lung?


Flight Nursing and Flight Physiotherapy

  • Procedures to be done frequently.
  • Physiotherapy even in small cabins.
  • How to fight the effects of third spacing.
  • How to perform procedures without losing lines.
  • The positive effect on yourself working on and with the patient.


Hygiene - Precautions

  • Which vaccinations are a must, which are recommended?
  • The problem with Malaria and chemoprophylaxis.
  • The actual travel medical situation for Malaria.
  • The actual travel medical situation for Yellow Fever.
  • The actual travel medical situation for Typhoid Fever, Meningitis, Dengue, Chikungunya, Zika, MERS, and the dangers for us.
  • Professional behaviour to prevent food poisoning while on a mission.


Hygiene - Flying an Infectious Patient

  • Ways of transmission.
  • Proper procedures for hand hygiene.
  • Procedures to minimise the risk of getting infected or spreading the germ.
  • Are the pilots at risk?
  • Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
  • How to protect yourself and the pilots and still have a workable situation.
  • Disinfection of equipment and cabin.
  • Documentation.
  • Communication (personnel, hospitals, ground ambulances, airport employees).


Hygiene - Multi Resistant Germs

  • Classification of bacteria, spores and toxins.
  • Colonisation location and precautions.
  • How are they transmitted? Specific necessary PPE to prevent transmission.
  • Survivability of germs on surfaces.
  • Dangers to transfer personnel depending on situation in referring hospital.
  • Countries with high rates of and specific strains of multi resistant germs.


Resuscitation (including First Aid Training for Pilots)

  • The latest guidelines from October 2021
  • Basic Life Support
  • Advanced Life Support
  • Automated External Defibrillator
  • The incapacitated pilot
  • (Near) drowning
  • Allergic shock
  • The typical signs of myocardial ischaemia during flight compared to on the ground.


Trauma Management

  • Initial assessment and stabilisation.
  • Difficult airway and helpful equipment.
  • The danger of ARDS and how to ventilate the trauma patient.
  • Thoracic drainage placement for pneumothorax or hematothorax.
  • Dealing with traumatic brain injury.
  • Trauma induced coagulation disorders.
  • Basics on fracture stabilisation.
  • Lab results and what to correct before flight.
  • The importance of blood gas analysis even in non-ventilated patients.
  • What is still in some national guidelines but harms the patient?


Burns Management

  • Estimation of degree and surface percentage.
  • When breathing difficulties must be expected.
  • Wound cover.
  • Fluid management.
  • Pain management.
  • Positioning during flight.
  • Choice of hospital (flight time vs expertise).


Medical Diagnoses and Air Medical Transfer

  • Depending on the diagnosis, the treatment and the time since onset or treatment, a patient should not be flown, may have to be flown by air ambulance or may be flown by commercial airliner with or without a medical escort. We point out the options.


The Psychiatric Patient

  • Which are the "trouble" diagnoses?
  • When do you need a legal guardian?
  • Correct way of consenting to air medical transfer.
  • What are the laws when you want to sedate a patient?
  • What are your rights?
  • When is physical or pharmacologic fixation legally allowed?
  • Who is responsible at selective locations? 


Ground Ambulance Transport

  • The most dangerous part of the patient transfer.
  • What to check when ordering a ground ambulance?
  • What to check before entering a ground ambulance?
  • What to check after having boarded a ground ambulance?


Air Medical Resource Management

  • The history of CRM and its' limitations.
  • The evolution of CRM.
  • Cultural differences in CRM - aviation compared to medicine.
  • The evolution to Air Medical Resource Management
  • The single steps towards a good functioning team.
  • No team player? No flight!


Quality System

  • How to install a quality system?
  • Who should participate in which stage?
  • Which medical data to collect?
  • Which operational data to collect?
  • Feedback from whom and how?
  • Case review and analysis.
  • Written procedures and their necessity for quality.
  • How to analyse the data?
  • Quality meetings and the aim of improving.
  • The circle of improvement.


Ditching and Surviving in the Cold

  • How to prepare the cabin before ditching?
  • Where to position necessary safety equipment?
  • How to prepare the patient?
  • How to position yourself before ditching?
  • What to do when after ditching?
  • How to find the exit?
  • How to stay as warm as possible in the water?
  • How to enter the life raft?
  • How to use survival equipment?


Smoke and Fire in the Cabin

  • How to detect and find a fire in the cabin?
  • What is the main origin of fire and smoke in the cabin?
  • Specific roles of the medical team in case of fire.
  • What to prepare before attempting to fight the fire?
  • How to approach a fire?
  • How to use the axe?
  • How to use the fire extinguisher?
  • Different kinds of fire extinguishers and important things to know.


Hazardous Materials

  • Different classes of hazardous materials and examples.
  • What are the hazardous materials we encounter during our work?
  • What are the health threats of the hazardous materials we encounter?
  • What is the treatment when exposure occured?
  • How to deal with biological and potentially infectious waste?


Aviation

  • Aerodynamics.
  • Parts of the airplane.
  • Function of a jet engine.
  • Air intake and pressurization.
  • Pitot tube and static vent.
  • Instruments in the cockpit.


Meteorology

  • The climatic zones of the earth.
  • Low pressure and high pressure areas and the generation of wind.
  • The Coriolis effect.
  • Fronts and specific weather phenomena.
  • Local weather phenomena.
  • Cloud types and their specifications.
  • Where to expect turbulences, including CAT.
  • Aviation weather reports and forecasts explained (METAR, TAF).



Legal Aspects

  • National medical certification
  • Registration of aircraft
  • Countries underneath
  • Departure & arrival country
  • Who is responsible for the patient at which location?
  • Consenting, legal guardian
  • Aviation laws


 

tel. +31 46 3690126        service@glo-bal-med.com

 

Globalmed Air Medical Services B.V.
Horsterweg 27, 6199 AC Maastricht Airport, Netherlands