Photo / Courtesy, LifeFlight of Maine
A LifeFlight of Maine helicopter is shown in action.
Updated: February 28, 2024
LifeFlight of Maine is taking off on a new course to improve emergency care
Courtesy / LifeFlight of Maine
LifeFlight of Maine hired Kyle Madigan to oversee a client relations initiative.
LifeFlight of Maine, the state's only air ambulance service, is working to make better connections with other emergency care organizations, and not just at a helipad.
The Bangor-based nonprofit wants to ensure smooth, reliable, rapid transportation of acutely ill and injured patients, and says that service is critical to their outcomes and to the capacity of Maine's emergency medical system.
LifeFlight is launching an initiative that includes expanded outreach to hospitals, first responders, emergency medical services and 911 centers across Maine’s 16 counties.
The organization has created a new position, director of client relations, to lead the initiative. Kyle Madigan began in the role in January. Madigan has decades of experience as a flight nurse and critical care provider, educator and air medical program administrator. Most recently, he led the Dartmouth Hitchcock Advanced Response Team, LifeFlight of Maine’s peer service based in Lebanon, N.H.
“We are continually looking for ways to elevate the level of care we provide to our patients, and to improve the reliability and speed of the service we offer to every community here in Maine,” said Joe Kellner, CEO of LifeFlight of Maine and a 2023 Mainebiz 40 Under 40 honoree.
Better coordination
The plan includes expanding the use of LifeFlight’s ground safety and user course, which trains partner agencies on how to identify when a patient needs a LifeFlight transport, how to make a transport request, how to safely secure a landing zone and how to transfer the patient into LifeFlight’s care.
Madigan and Kellner are also leading efforts to strengthen operational collaboration between LifeFlight and Maine’s hospitals.
The majority of calls to LifeFlight come from a hospital requesting to transfer an acutely ill patient to a facility that offers a higher level of care — a critically important ability for Maine’s geographically dispersed hospitals.
Madigan will work with leaders and clinicians in emergency departments and intensive care units to improve coordination and logistics for the care teams interfacing with LifeFlight crews.
More helipads
LifeFlight is working with communities, first responders and private citizens to establish additional helicopter landing zones in rural areas.
LifeFlight maintains a database of thousands of landing zones across Maine and parts of New Hampshire, which LifeFlight crews utilize to respond to medical emergencies. Many of these landing zones are local athletic fields or parking lots. Others are clearings deep in the Maine woods.
By working with communities to expand the database, which is also available to 911 dispatchers statewide, LifeFlight hopes to create more critical health care access points across Maine.
“I have worked in collaboration with my colleagues at LifeFlight of Maine for years, and I’m pleased to now have the opportunity to serve alongside them,” said Madigan.
Capital investments
Formed as a joint venture of Central Maine Healthcare and Northern Light Health, LifeFlight has invested more than $1 million over the past decade in education programs for clinicians across Maine and in the LifeFlight Remote Access Project, the organization told Mainebiz. The Remote Access Project identifies temporary helicopter landing zones in communities and remote areas.
A foundation provides significant financial support for capital investments at LifeFlight of Maine, including the funding of its education programs. It also provided initial funding for the director of client relations role.
Since it was founded in 2003, the foundation has raised more than $42 million from donors, businesses, foundations and communities across Maine and beyond to support LifeFlight of Maine.
Plans this year include investing $1.9 million in a new ground transport program with the acquisition of critical care ambulances, designed to benefit the entire EMS system in Maine by supplementing the emergency medical resources available in local communities.
LifeFlight of Maine employs 109 people. As services expand, particularly as its critical care ground transport program grows, it expects to hire additional clinical staff members for these vehicles.
Since 1998, LifeFlight has transported more than 38,000 patients from every Maine community. The service has an airplane and five helicopters, based in Bangor, Lewiston and Sanford, and ground ambulances. Each base is staffed by a team of pilots, flight nurses and flight paramedics, EMT vehicle operators, aviation maintenance technicians and communications specialists.
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