New Radio System For Medical Helicopters Will Improve Emergency Care For Patients, USA

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 04 Feb 2008 - 10:00 PDT

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National Interop, Inc. announced it has been awarded a project to significantly upgrade the radio system serving air ambulances across a 12-state region.

The new system is expected to be more reliable, and will increase the quality of patient care by enabling better communications among medical flight crews, first responders, and hospitals.

National Interop was awarded the contract by the Air Evac Lifeteam, which is the largest independently owned and operated air medical service in the U.S. The project will upgrade Air Evac Lifeteam's radio system to use open, standards-based Radio Over Internet Protocol (ROIP).

National Interop designed the system after a thorough assessment of Air Evac Lifeteam's current operations and needs, and conducted a survey of the currently available technologies that could be used for a radio system that must accommodate a large geographic area at a reasonable cost. National Interop ultimately recommended an underlying network implemented with Cisco routers as radio interfaces, and Twisted Pair Solution's WAVE for standards-based radio over Internet Protocol software.

"One of our objectives in the design was to find a way to provide a completely redundant, always-live second dispatch center for Air Evac, should their primary dispatch facility in Missouri be disabled or destroyed in a disaster," said David Billstrom, CEO of National Interop. "Configuring additional users in a standards-based ROIP environment is so affordable, we will be transforming the existing dispatch equipment in their Training Academy from a mock-up of a typical dispatch environment, to a fully equipped dispatch environment, ready to use as a backup dispatch center at any moment."

"National Interop had the in-depth experience with this relatively new technology that we required, and we appreciated the methodical approach they used for the system design," said Seth Myers, president of Air Evac Lifeteam.

Air Evac Lifeteam is the largest independently owned and operated membership-supported air medical service in the United States, conducting its operations through 76 mutually supporting air medical bases across 12 states. The company has established itself as the preeminent provider of air ambulance services to rural markets.

Air Evac operates the world's largest fleet of more than 100 Bell 206 Long Ranger helicopters and has flown more than 140,000 people who were in critical need of care since its founding. The current service area includes operations in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas, and is the largest air ambulance provider in eight of its twelve states.

About National Interop

National Interop, Inc. serves public safety agencies by providing tactical and permanent communications systems. The company's staff includes current and former public safety first responders, VoIP, RoIP and network experts, land mobile radio technicians, and system analysts and designers.

The company offers consultation, construction and training services and creates communication systems that are flexible, economical, and scalable. National Interop, Inc. is privately held with offices in Seattle, Wash. and Portland, Ore.

National Interop