The Global Challenge Of Staffing The Air Medical Industry
The role of the crew is central to medevac operations. They play the important role of assisting in, assuring, planning for and executing a medical journey. The timely availability of skilled, experienced and intrinsically motivated professionals is very important for quality patient experiences in this field.
Even as industry leaders have begun to be vocal about the shortage of qualified staff in air medical services, Bluedot is on a mission to address this need and ensure that high standards are set and met.
Speaking at the ITIC Global conference in Athens in October, Sean Bryan, the Director of Medical Operations at REVA noted that staffing was the most important challenge faced by the industry, not only post-pandemic but even before that. Mr. Bryan pointed out that lack of regulation and protection, such as for duty times (unlike that for pilots), exhaustion and PTSD were some of the issues faced by medevac crew, often leading to burnouts or shifts to more lucrative private nursing careers.
Understanding from the start that the air medical industry needs better regulation and more quality leadership, Bluedot has been striving to set higher standards in every area of operation of its air ambulance and medical escort services. The Universal Medical Escort Network (UMeN) is one such pioneering initiative from Bluedot.
It is a growing global network of emergency medical transfer professionals available 24×7 on-call for medical transfers worldwide, enabled by an app on their smartphones. Their experience, skills, and qualifications are thoroughly vetted by Bluedot’s senior medical professionals to ensure consistently high quality of service on every journey. UMeN will support medical assistance professionals by arranging unified training & certification programs that also include equipment training and documentation training for medical escorts.
Such a network can partly help solve the problem of a shortage of quality crew on medevac missions. At the same time, the industry must come together to set global standards of regulation and protections for the aeromedical crew, so that the work ethic in the industry is overhauled to become positive and considerate, enabling medical assistance professionals to flourish.
If you are a physician or nurse interested in aeromedical careers or would like to know more about the Universal Medical Escort Network, please call or chat with us any day, any time on +971 55 188 1441
