Embracing innovation in aviation

Redstar Aviation's air ambulance services have gained recognition for their efficiency and effectiveness. Can you detail some of the recent enhancements or innovations you’ve made in your air ambulance operations from a medical perspective?

Effective crew scheduling and medical preparedness allows us to provide our clients with greater empty-leg opportunities which significantly reduces response time to patient and cost to the payer. Also, a standard doublestretcher configuration on all Redstar Aviation aircraft allows additional flexibility and cotransport options where clinically suitable. 

Redstar Aviation has also recently expanded its fleet with additional Challenger aircraft. How has this increase in long-range capabilities benefited your patient care services, and what specific improvements have you observed in response times and treatment accessibility?

Possessing the long-range aircraft option enables our patients to reach their intended destination faster due to less technical stop requirements, ultimately resulting in reduced out-of-hospital time. An eight-hour endurance rating on the Challenger 605 also means that a flight operation can bypass certain geographies entirely. The latter benefit has obvious positive implications on overall patient and crew safety which has been growingly evident, especially considering the current geopolitical climate.

A larger aircraft cabin allows greater flexibility of medical preparedness in terms of greater capacities of medical oxygen and equipment that can be made available on board. More available seats inside the cabin allows for acceptance of a greater number of travelling companions in cases where clinically suitable.

With the addition of more Challenger aircraft, what have been the major challenges or logistical hurdles you’ve faced from a medical perspective, and how have you addressed these issues to ensure seamless operations?

With the addition of more long-range aircraft to our fleet, we are able to provide regular availability over a wide geographical area. This has in turn resulted in a natural lengthening of average flight time with patient.

As transit time with patient increases, so do the risks of a clinical adverse event occurring during transit – especially with a critical patient on board. The clinical and logistical risk assessment in these cases certainly requires more careful consideration when compared to a mission of just a couple of hours. Flying longer and farther also means that our crewmembers are more regularly crossing multiple time zones in a relatively short period. This, combined with a demanding flight schedule, can have accumulative effects on crew performance levels.

An effective crew change strategy has helped to minimise crew fatigue as best as possible. These challenges are obviously not specific to us at Redstar Aviation but shared by our fellow providers performing long-range operations.

Training and expertise are critical for air ambulance crews. How does Redstar Aviation ensure that its team is adequately trained to handle the unique challenges of air ambulance services, especially with the integration of new aircraft into your fleet?

We have a robust training programme in place which begins at the onboarding stage and continues throughout employment. Through our Company Conversion Training, we ensure that all our crewmembers are fully adapted to operating in the aeromedical setting. During the course of employment, all Redstar Aviation crewmembers receive internationally accepted certified life support training and regular in-house training sessions as part of our Continuous Medical Education curriculum to combine theoretical knowledge and practical hands-on skills to ensure clinical best practices. 

Lastly, looking ahead, what future developments or upgrades do you foresee for Redstar Aviation’s air ambulance and commercial escort services?

Work is ongoing on an exciting new project to take our training to the next level. We are in the process of setting up an air ambulance simulator utilising an actual aircraft frame which had served thousands of hours flying air ambulance missions for us and had been retired from the active fleet. It will be a first-ofits-kind in our region and will enable our crew to simulate clinical and aviation scenarios inside a real air ambulance aircraft cabin. We look forward to its full integration and will be happy to announce to all of our partners in due time.