Care Takes Flight

CARE TAKES FLIGHT HALO-Flight earns prestigious 2019 EMS Air Medical Service Award.

By: JANE DARE-HAAS

The Texas Department of State Health Services presented HALO-Flight with their 2019 EMS Air Medical Service Award at the recent Texas EMS Conference in Fort Worth.

The Air Medical Service Award, as reported on the DSHS website, “honors a public or private air medical service in Texas that has demonstrated the highest standards in providing patient care, leading the way in innovation and commitment to patient care.”

“We are indeed honored to be recognized with this award,” said Tom Klassen, HALO-Flight executive director. “Placing safety and patient care as our top priorities guides every decision we make. From the professionals who care for the patients to the professionals who care for the aircraft, we are grateful for this distinguishing acknowledgement.”

In 2019, HALO-Flight rolled out the pre-hospital blood program providing blood transfusion services on every flight. Within days of the rollout, a 3-year-old patient received pre-hospital blood while in route to Driscoll Children’s Hospital, where physicians acknowledged it as lifesaving care.

Innovation fostered by HALO-Flight also resulted in lifesaving safety in 2019 when ballistic windshields strategically placed on all four aircraft protected the flight crew following two bird strikes. The technology, provided to HALO-Flight by the Ed Rachel Foundation, is state-of-the-art in aircraft safety ensuring no patient, crew or aircraft damage from bird strikes.

Since 1987, HALO-Flight has given 24-hour-a-day service to South Texans with air ambulance transportation to higher levels of care on their worst day when they are victims of accidents, illness and injury, and in need of rapid transport to higher levels of care. In addition to transport from the scene of accidents, the mission of HALO-Flight also includes inter-facility transfers of patients needing care only available at trauma facilities in Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Houston and Austin.

About HALO-Flight For over three decades, HALO-Flight has delivered on the trauma needs of South Texans when minutes to a higher level of care mattered most. With a fleet of helicopter air ambulances based in Corpus Christi, Alice and Beeville, servicing over 28,000 square miles and a population of over one-and-a-half million people, HALOFlight responds to thousands of critical accident, heart attack and newborn patients, plus many more who might not have a chance to survive otherwise.

PLACING SAFETY AND PATIENT CARE AS OUR TOP PRIORITIES GUIDES EVERY DECISION WE MAKE.” “

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