CareFlight started out as Australia’s first dedicated helicopter medical service, 30 years ago. Our founders pioneered the concept of saving lives by taking hospital-level care to the patient. What began as a radical idea has become standard practice.
Through continuous innovation, CareFlight has become the benchmark for emergency aeromedical services. CareFlight:
- developed the doctor/paramedic helicopter crewing model that is now the standard in Australia.
- developed the critical care stretcher bridge system, a mobile intensive care unit.
- developed, sought financing for and ran the Head Injury Retrieval Trial, the world’s first randomised clinical trial to evaluate the benefits of rapid response physician care to head injured patients.
- initiated the unique CareFlight MediSim program, a mobile workshop which brings trauma care training to clinicians and first responders in rural and regional areas around Australia.
- developed Australia’s civilian disaster medical cache and deployable surgical capability. The cache was deployed to Banda Aceh following the tsunami in 2004, and the Jogyaarta earthquake in 2006.
- initiated and ran a pre-hospital trauma course attended by retrieval doctors from around Australia and New Zealand as well as the Australian Defence Force.
- was one of the first emergency helicopter services in Australia to go on 24 hour duty.
- carried out Australia’s first helicopter intra-aortic balloon pump transport retrieval.
- developed the first medical audible alarm integrated into the intercom system. This allows doctors to hear medical equipment alarms in the noisy helicopter environment.
- built Australia’s first helicopter medical simulator. The simulator gives crews the opportunity to practise medical procedures in a life-like helicopter scenario.
- developed the single phone call system to activate medical retrieval services.
- was one of the first civilian operators to use night vision goggles.
- Working with oil and gas industry partners, CareFlight developed the I-CARE aeromedical system, a stretcher and critical care equipment set that can be seamlessly transferred between the multiple transport platforms used in an offshore medevac.