Timing is everything when it comes to providing health care to these babies, and Scott and White Hospital will be able to respond more quickly to babies in other locales now that it has an incubator that can be used on its helicopters.
Until now, neonatal intensive care unit transport teams had to wait until the child was in stable condition to the make the flight to Scott and White or travel by land in an ambulance. The airborne incubator, or isolette, provides a high-tech environment to maintain temperature, humidity and respiration assistance for premature infants. This particular incubator is specifically for use in helicopter transports.
“Having a transport unit like this helps us bring in some of the most critically ill babies,” said Dr. Cheryl Cipriani, neonatology physician at Scott and White. “If we can deliver them high frequency ventilation that’s for our tiniest babies ¾ when we breathe 600 to 1,000 times a minute ¾ that allows us to move some of the sickest babies.”
The ability to start the babies on therapies prior to arrival at the hospital is helpful, she said.
“Some of transport areas are two to three hours away and if we can shorten that by helicopter and start our therapies before they arrive it’s a definite advantage to the sickest babies,” Dr. Cipriani said.
About 100 babies a year are brought to Scott and White’s neonatal unit, she said.
The airborne incubator was made possible by a $65,000 gift to the Children’s Miracle Network from the McLane Company, Inc.
The McLane Company Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Scott and White is a Level III NICU, which indicates the highest level of care available. The NICU typically provides care for babies born early and whose bodies have not had a chance to fully develop.
The Scott and White NICU transport team regularly flies in one of the two available Stat Air ambulance helicopters to hospitals as far as 100 miles away. This special team is one of only a few in Texas providing neonatal intensive care unit transport.
PHI Stat Air, the company that provides air ambulance service for Scott and White, has expanded service, upgrading its second aircraft, said Brittany Misercola of PHI Stat Air.
“Now both aircrafts can carry the neonatal intensive care unit incubator,” she said.
Though the area of the helicopter used to transport the patients and the medics appears small, Brenda Powell, flight nurse with PHI Stat Air, said the new helicopter has more room.
“It’s cozy,” paramedic James Green said.
Green and Powell have been partners for a number of years, which makes working in close quarters easier, Ms. Powell said.
The flight crew not only responds to traumas but also medical calls, and carries drugs on board normally used in emergency rooms and intensive care units, Ms. Powell said. The crew can get a number of treatments going while in flight.
“We also carry two units of blood,” she said. “I’ve actually started blood on a person penned in a vehicle. They couldn’t get them out and their condition was deteriorating. It helped me get them to the hospital alive.”
The helicopter also has a Global Positioning System, weather radar and several radios.
