Air-to-ground communications: A valuable aid in the transport of critically ill patients

The transport of critically ill patients by air ambulance is an important aspect of the delivery of regionalized intensive care in Northern California. The severity of patient illness as well as the complexities of air transport mandate that simple, fast, and reliable air-to-ground communications be available to the pilot and medical transport team. The Northern California Infant Medical Dispatch Center was established in 1976 by the California Legislature to facilitate the rapid referral of critically ill newborns from community hospitals to intensive care nurseries. The Dispatch Center keeps a continuous log of intensive care nursery bed availability and arranges emergency medical transports. In 1977, the Dispatch Center began operation of an air-to-ground radio network for coordination of emergency air transports of patients of all ages. This communication system, unique in its design, scope, and function, is a joint effort of the Dispatch Center and the Santa Clara County Emergency Medical Services Division. The system has an operative range within a 250-mi radius of San Jose. In the first year of operation 900 calls for the coordination of transports of critically ill newborn and adult patients were received. The system has been very effective. As an example, it has allowed uninterrupted patient care when the plane has had to land at an alternative airport because of weather or mechanical problems. The Dispatch Center staffs an aeronautical en route station licensed to Aeronautical Radio, Inc. Permission was granted by Santa Clara County to locate the Dispatch Center's communication system antenna and transceiver in their mountain-top communications vault. In addition, technical expertise and a microwave channel were made available so that the system can be directly controlled from the Dispatch Center. Since this communications system utilizes an aeronautical en route frequency, the pilot or inflight medical transport team can directly communicate with the Dispatch Center or be telephone patched to the ground hospital by using the existing aircraft radio. The only requirement is the aircraft radio station license must be amended to authorize use of the aeronautical en route frequencies, and a service agreement be executed with Aeronautical Radio, Inc., the licensee of the ground station. The system has recently been modified to provide an additional radio on board. Each radio is portable, hand-held, and individually tone encoded. This provides the aeromedical transport team optimal access to the system.