No impact on patient care from Edmonton airport move
On 15 January, the Health Quality Council of Alberta released findings from a review of the transport and care provided to medevac patients since Edmonton City Centre Airport closed and patients began to be routed to Edmonton International Airport.
On 15 January, the Health Quality Council of Alberta (HQCA) released findings and recommendations from a review of the transport and care provided to critically-ill and time-sensitive medevac patients since March 2013 when Edmonton City Centre Airport was closed and patients began to be routed to Edmonton International Airport, which lies to the south of the city. The review of 232 patient charts showed the extended transport time of critically-ill and time-sensitive patients from Edmonton International Airport to an Edmonton acute care hospital ‘did not cause any patient safety or quality issues’.
Dr John Tallon, who led the HQCA Medevac Chart Review Quality Assurance Review Team, commented: “We did not see any evidence of patient safety or care issues that could be associated directly with the relocation of medevac services to the Edmonton International Airport from the Edmonton City Centre Airport. In fact, the transfer time from the Edmonton International Airport to the tertiary care hospital (University of Alberta Hospital or Royal Alexandra Hospital) was only about 15 per cent of the overall patient journey time in the cases we studied.”
The HQCA has outlined five recommendations to further enhance the medevac service for Albertans. These recommendations, which fall into four themes, are intended to: expedite the decision to transport patients; improve patient care documentation and its availability; improve monitoring and reporting on quality; and enhance the level of care provided through the implementation of critical care teams for fixed-wing medevac and the optimisation of air ambulance resources in the province.
The report also recognises the work Alberta Health Services has done to improve medevac services since the HQCA’s first medevac review (in 2011), including that 15 (of the total 18) recommendations from the 2011 report have since been implemented.