Rotorcraft
HEMS Industry Getting Safer
The helicopter EMS industry is reducing the number of accidents and fatalities.

Dr. Ira Blumen is the program/medical director for the University of Chicago's Aeromedical Network (UCAN) and for the last 17 years has been one of the nation's foremost researchers on the helicopter EMS industry, administering a nationwide annual survey that gleans an 85-percent response rate. He shared his data mosaic and the trends it suggests during a presentation at last month's Air Medical Transport Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. Among the recent trends Blumen noted: a lower accident rate holding steady, fewer patient transports, a slight uptick in the number of hours flown, a record number of flight hours for the fleet as an aggregate and—for the first time—a net decline in the number of dedicated operational EMS helicopters in the U.S.

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