The Dartmouth-Hitchcock Advanced Response Team, which responds to only the most extreme trauma, cardiac or neonatal emergency calls and has been called to the Dartmouth Skiway, will soon realize its goal of adding a second helicopter to its already impressive array of emergency transport vehicles.
Early last fall, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center decided to lease the new helicopter, DHART 2, from Metro Aviation Inc., the same company that built and maintains their current helicopter. The present EC135 helicopter, called DHART 1, is capable of cruising at 150 miles per hour and was purchased by the program in 1998, hospital officials said. DHART 2 will be the same model, though slightly older than DHART 1, and will join the DHART team on April 11.
The decision to lease DHART 2 was made largely because, while DHART 1 successfully completed 846 missions last year, DHART had to reject 226 requests that were made while DHART 1 was already in the middle of a transport.
"Essentially, the organization saw that there are more and more patients requiring our service and we keep having to turn them down even though there isn't an alternative service," said Donna Clark, director of the DHART program. She noted that DHART services almost all of Northern New England, including Upstate New York and Western Maine, with the next closest emergency air transport locations as far away as Boston, Mass., and Lewiston and Bangor, Maine.
"None of those places are able to respond in a timely manner and as the patient base continues to grow, the need is going to continue to grow," Clark said.
Founded in 1994, DHART originally stood for Dartmouth-Hitchcock Air Response Team, but the name was changed in 2001 with the addition of several high-tech ambulances, featuring technology normally only seen in a hospital intensive-care unit.
"DHART is essential to the emergency medical community because land transport often takes too long in life-threatening situations." said Lauren Brown '05, a member of the Ski Patrol Board of Directors.
"If an ambulance takes 20 minutes to drive from DHMC to the Skiway and another 20 minutes back to the hospital, a patient has gone nearly an hour before reaching the next level of care," Brown said. "DHART takes a matter of minutes, which can be the life-saving difference."
"It's great to have the extra resources for the area," said Taylor Duvall '05, director of the Dartmouth Emergency Medical Services program. "The geography of the land lends itself to the car not being the best means of transportation from point A to point B, although you do need to look at the cost for an individual to be transported."
Each trip has a base rate of approximately $6,000, with a charge of $70 per loaded mile on the return trip, causing the average DHART airlift to cost the patient $8,000.
Due to a nondisclosure agreement based on the competitive nature of the lease, Clark was unable to comment on the cost to the hospital of leasing the second helicopter.
"In terms of cost, relative to patients and transport, it will not increase our charges," Clark said. "We're not hiring any new staff, though we will be evaluating the purchase of another aircraft if people decide that we need it."
As with all emergency medical providers, DHART is pleased when business is bad, but Brown noted the importance of the availability of the new helicopter, whether or not it is used.
"Ski patrol does not rely heavily on DHART and normally calls the helicopter only a few times a season, if at all," she said, "However, even if the service is only needed by us two or three times a season, those two or three times could save a life."
