Aeromedical services provider MedAire will be on-hand at NBAA-BACE once again this year, and attendees will be able to experience the International SOS subsidiary’s medical expertise first-hand. Medical director Dr. David Streitwieser is fielding in-flight calls live at a dedicated listening area in the company’s booth (#3400).
MedAire will also have additional subject matter experts on hand to help answer visitor questions as they listen to a real-time case unfold.
“Our MedLink Center in Phoenix, Arizona, gets hundreds of visitors a year,” said company CEO Bill Dolny, adding he has wanted to bring that experience to NBAA’s annual convention for years. “With the technological advancements that we made to our case management platform over the past year, we can now deliver the experience on the show floor as if you were visiting a center in person.”
MedAire operates four fully-staffed response centers around the world, with its flagship facility located in the emergency department at Phoenix’s Banner University Hospital. Additional centers are situated in Beijing; Frankfurt, Germany; and Johannesburg, South Africa to support customers anywhere in the world, 24-hours a day.
The company receives more than 300 calls a day from its business and commercial aviation clients, both pre-flight to assess a passenger’s ability to fly, and during in-flight emergencies.
“We get calls for ailments as common as a headache to as serious as a cardiac event,” explained Streitwieser, adding that emergency room doctors are known for their ability to handle stressful situations and quick diagnoses. “MedLink doctors are not only emergency department trained, but also trained in aviation medicine and altitude physiology.”
The company has made advancements to its platform over the past year that it is demonstrating at BACE. A new aviation security module in its membership portal will provide a snapshot risk profile for locations that will include its Covid-19 impact scales in addition to the medical and travel security risk ratings. The module also allows flight departments to upload flight routes and map risk along the way.
When the Covid pandemic hit last year, MedAire enhanced its aviation app to include an infectious disease scenario to help operators minimize the risk of transmission. This year it is improved again with new scenarios to address the most common in-flight ailments: vomiting, abdominal pain, allergic reactions, and fainting.
On Wednesday during the NBAA awards luncheon, MedAire founder and chairman Joan Sullivan Garrett was to be inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, part of the organization’s class of 2020, for her pioneering vision of creating the first global remote medical emergency response company. The original enshrinement ceremony was postponed as a result of the Covid pandemic.
Garrett is also launching her autobiography, One Life Lost, Millions Gained, the Story of a Flight Nurse Turned MedAire CEO, at the show. As a young flight nurse in 1984, the loss of a young patient in the mountains of Arizona inspired her to develop what has become a global telemedicine product. She is signing copies at the company’s booth at certain times.
