Kid Copter offers care for the smallest patients

     It may be the first in the country, and ARCH Air Medical Service is proud of the newest addition to its fleet --- Kid Copter.

     The child-friendly helicopter is the same model as most of the others in the fleet, but it's completely  customized for the smallest of patients and the specialized medical teams that transport them.

     "It was established in April of this year," Matt Kasten, communications director for ARCH, said. "It's the first one of its kind in the area, probably the first in the country, with the paint scheme and dedication of the aircraft."

     Kasten said the Kid Copter makes from 40 to 70 flights a month, transporting critically ill children, premature babies and mothers in labor.

     The Kid Copter is designed to be different from the rest of the regular helicopters in ARCH's fleet. Instead of being staffed with  pilot and a medical team, Kid Copter only has a pilot assigned to it. That way, each hospital that uses the service to transport a patient can send along its own specialized medical team.

     "We have exclusive contracts with St. Louis Children's Hospital, Cardinal Glennon, St. Johns Mercy Medical Center, all three for neonatal and pediatric transport teams, and with Barnes Hospital's OB Department for mothers in distress," Kasten said.

     "Basically that is their aircraft, dedicated to those hospitals. Any time they have patients, a mom in labor, and they need to send their own specialty team, we send over Kid Copter with our pilot," he said. "Their medical team, stabilizes the child or OB mother, and then transports them back to their hospital."

     "Everything is different inside the aircraft, different sizes of equipment, different medications, different doses."

     Kasten said the hospitals are "ecstatic" about the new service. It works better for ARCH as well. So it makes better use of resources for the helicopter transport service.

     "The reason we did it is that we identified there was a volume, a need in the area for such an aircraft," Kasten said. "Before, we would send our helicopter over, and we would have to leave our medical crew back at our base. That's not good utilization of our crews, and if there was an emergency, they couldn't respond."

     "The hospitals were happy before, because we were providing transportation for their specialized teams, but our staff weren't happy, just sitting back there without a helicopter and unable to respond," Kasten said.

© Collinsville Herald Journal 2003