How Rescue Air 1 Assists Hospital Personnel

View Rescue Air 1 as an adjunct in your arsenal to better treat your patients. In fact, we want you to view Rescue Air 1 as an extension of your hospital, no different than your Laboratory Department, Radiology Department, or the tools and equipment found on your unit such as your ventilator, Ambu-bag, or monitor. We are simply a tool for you to use to better serve and treat your patients.

Why do Hospitals use Rescue Air 1? Because Rescue Air 1 can:

Decrease the time to definitive care

A decrease in time to definitive care increases the patient's chances of survival due to shaving minutes off of their Golden Hour. The concept of the Golden Hour has typically defined the trauma patient, but it can be expanded to include many medical diagnoses such as unstable angina, acute myocardial infarction, acute abdominal aortic aneurysm, cerebral vascular accident, and closed head injury, just to name a few. If your hospital does not have the specialists and expertise to adequately care for your patient's diagnosis, then call Rescue Air 1. We can decrease the time to the necessary definitive care. How do we decrease time to definitive care?

  • flying faster than a ground ambulance drives
  • going from point A to point B in a straight line without the hassles of red lights, traffic, or bad roads
  • offering the Guaranteed ETA: It's unique. It's a promise. And it'll help save lives. It's our Guaranteed ETA. Which means, we will be there exactly when we say we will - to the minute. To find out more, click here.

Decrease the time to critical intervention.

As an extension of your team and as your transport tool, upon our arrival at your hospital, we can assist you in providing definitive care to your patient. Our flight team works from many advanced protocols set forth by our medical director that allow us to perform such interventions as rapid sequence intubation and surgical cricothyroidectomies, just to name a few. In addition, we can also initiate therapies that the receiving physician may want started prior to transport. Our flight team is trained to work with you in getting these therapies started. In addition, our flight team is trained to call the receiving physician for all pediatric transports in order to get detailed instructions/orders from the receiving physician.

Decrease the patient's out-of-hospital time, which decreases the doctor-to-doctor time.

Sometimes we are asked, "Why should we wait on an air ambulance when the ground crew can be at our hospital more quickly?" While calling Rescue Air 1 may cause your patient to stay in your unit (a stable environment) longer than calling a closer ground service, your patient's out-of-hospital time (an unstable environment) is significantly decreased. We get your patient to the needed care much more quickly than a ground unit; we can fly faster than an ambulance can drive, and we fly in a straight line without the hassles encountered on the road.


By decreasing the out-of-hospital time, we are also able to decrease the doctor-to-doctor time. Again, the patient may stay in your unit longer, but the patient is able to remain under the care of a physician longer as well. By decreasing the out-of-hospital time, we are able to get the patient to the hands of the receiving physician faster. Thus, the doctor-to-doctor time is significantly shortened.

Provide a high level of care on each mission.

With each mission, we provide a registered nurse and a paramedic, both of whom are specially trained in acute critical care transports. There is no issue of decreasing the level of care while the patient is being transferred. The patient remains under the care of a registered nurse from your hospital until the patient arrives at the receiving facility. In addition, while the patient is being transferred, he/she is being attended and cared for by two highly trained and skilled clinicians as opposed to just one in an ambulance. This also eliminates the need for one of your facility's employees (nurse, paramedic, or respiratory therapist) to be pulled away from their duties in order to accompany the patient during the transport.

Assist in finding an appropriate receiving facility for your patient.

Rescue Air 1 is independently owned and operated, and has strong relationships with facilities in metropolitan Atlanta and other Georgia cities, as well as with facilities in other cities and states that border Georgia. We will use these relationships to work with you to find an appropriate receiving facility if you do not already have one established.

Help you satisfy the EMTALA regulations regarding patient transfers.

As you know, EMTALA regulates the means and mode of patient transfers. Certain criteria must be met by the sending facility including providing the most appropriate means of transport available. By using Rescue Air 1 appropriately, you are assured that your EMTALA responsibilities have been met on the transport portion of your patient transfer.

Help your bottom line - Utilizing Rescue Air 1 doesn't cost you a dime.

Rescue Air 1 provides these benefits and more to you and your hospital free of charge, meaning you will never receive an invoice from us. We bill third party insurance and/or the patient directly for services rendered.