Efficient and seamless repatriation

It’s always that one case – it’s the middle of the night, the least experienced case manager is on duty and the head of network is on their annual leave, you get a medically complex VIP repat from the middle of nowhere and everything goes sideways… That one case could cost you your largest client and years of hard-earned reputation. 

This posed a challenge in maintaining quality service, particularly when it comes to complex tasks which require experience and expertise.

That one case could cost you your largest client and years of hard-earned reputation

One prominent service and technology platform that overcomes this challenge is Aero-plan. While serving as a powerful tool in  the hands of repat professionals, it was also designed to streamline processes and ensure the team follows the directive set by the organisation’s ops and medical management,  so even the least experienced staff would have much less error margin.

No time to spare

repatriation of a critical patient from midwestern USA to the UK was disrupted when the aircraft suffered mechanical failure en route to the patient. After calling up a few providers, with no luck, and due to the time constraints on this complex transfer, the Assistance Ops manager advised the team was to abort the transport. The patient ended up spending another month in the hospital before getting back home for continued care.

Luckily, this is not how it all went down. In reality, the Ops Manager used the Aero-plan platform to swiftly coordinate a US provider who happened to be in the region and en route to Europe to pick up another patient.

Within a few hours, the patient was delivered to the receiving hospital in stable condition.

Moving patients the smart way

Coordinating medical flights has always been a tedious task with complex logistics, tight schedules, multiple emails and calls to secure a provider. Plus, at times, constraints by the availability of your network, or going out-of network and risking quality of service. 

In our line of business, time and focus are essential.

If you want your team to focus on care management and ensure a timely, minimal risk transport, you need seamless access to reliable, quality air medical providers, and a streamlined process in place.

In addition, you have to put substantial effort into network management and transaction handling.

For many assistance providers, this is a burden they’ve learned to live with. For some,  it is a limiting factor for growth. A combined solution of technology and services, like Aero-plan, offers a one-stop shop for this task. You’ll need to ensure:

• Quality of service – strict vetting and ongoing network monitoring
• Timely access and activation – instant access to relevant and available providers
• Risk and cost mitigation – having a variety of competitive offers, leveraging opportunity and operational efficiency.

Conclusion

When it comes to aerial medical transport, our collective mission is to move patients with safety, efficiency and financial responsibility. To accomplish that, we need to apply the same resourcefulness we use for complex cases, on our own processes, technologies and mindset.

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got” Anonymous take on Einstein’s ‘Insanity’ quote.