After nearly 35 years of providing premier clinical care and transport, Flight For Life has launched an Advanced Life Support (ALS) and Critical Care ground ambulance service. With demand for ground transport services on the rise, especially in the ALS and critical care space, Flight For Life has added two ambulances and 36 new team members.
The ground teams are located at the Flight For Life Waukesha base and in the Kenosha/Racine area. Each ground unit consists of a critical care nurse, critical care paramedic and EMT driver. Just like its helicopters, Flight For Life’s fleet of ambulances are configured as Mobile Intensive Care Units.
They carry the same equipment and medications, making Flight For Life one of the only ambulance providers in the region to carry blood on board, which can be a benefit to patients. “We saw the need to bring the same level of premier medical care provided by our helicopter crew to the ground,” said Dan Burns, executive director of Flight For Life. “Everything patients have come to expect from Flight For Life is now available in the back of our ambulances.”
The ground team has identical educational requirements, orientation, training and certifications as the helicopter’s medical crew. Flight For Life also makes requesting transport as easy as making one call or clicking a button through its “One Call” dispatch and app.
One of the new ground team members, Kira Dimitrijevich, a registered nurse who previously worked in the surgical ICU at Froedtert, said the opportunity to work for Flight For Life was one she couldn’t pass up. “I am a second-generation Flight For Life team member. My dad, Alex, was a flight paramedic at the McHenry base,” said Dimitrijevich. “Flight For Life’s expertise and professionalism are simply the best.”
Flight For Life’s ALS and Critical Care ambulances are already providing transports around the clock, seven days a week. To request a transport, hospitals, urgent care clinics and emergency departments can call 800-344-1000.
About the system
The Flight For Life Transport System is provided by the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center and headquartered in Waukesha, with bases in Waukesha, Fond du Lac, and Kenosha/Racine Wisconsin and McHenry, Illinois. The organization has transported more than 37,000 critically ill and injured patients throughout Wisconsin and northern Illinois since 1984.