Hospital copters nearing the end

Keeping one of the state’s best-known helicopter ambulance services aloft requires more than just maintenance and money. It requires planning on a decade-long scale.

Steve Haemmerle , director of the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Angel One transport division, said discussion of how to manage the replacement of the hospital’s two Sikorsky S-76 helicopters began almost immediately after he was first hired.

“I’ve been here for about six years, and we’ve been talking about it since day one,” Haemmerle said. “Capital dollars are always a scary subject.”

Angel One includes a fleet of two helicopters and four ambulance trucks, all of which are licensed through the state Department of Health to provide advanced life-support services. While pediatric doctors can be found throughout Arkansas, Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, provides a centralized location for the most advanced pediatric care in the state.

Angel One is what makes that care accessible to families in even the most rural locations in Arkansas, flying an average of 60 to 70 hours a month.

As the hospital’s helicopters have aged into their 10th year, maintenance has become more difficult and expensive, Haemmerle said. While administrators knew replacing the aircraft would be expensive, they also knew they couldn’t simply keep using the same helicopters until failure.

“At the 10-year mark, we knew we needed to pull the trigger on that,” Haemmerle said. “After 10 years, manufacturers won’t renew support contracts, because their liability becomes much higher, and we lose the reliability we like from our support vendors.”

In December, hospital administrators signed off on the purchase of two new Sikorsky helicopters at a cost of about $29.5 million.After the helicopters are delivered in April 2014, administrators expect to spend about $2.5 million a year in maintenance costs, from an annual operational budget of about $10 million for the entire Angel One program.

Greg Brown, director of emergency medical services at the Department of Health, said there are 39 aircraft licenced through his department to provide advanced life support. Thirty-two of the vehicles are helicopters, and the other seven are airplanes.

Brown said that helicopter advanced life-support transport is typically used to transport patients between hospitals, once it’s determined that the patient needs a higher level of care than the initial facility can provide.

“That’s why they’re utilized in the rural areas a lot more than the urban areas,” Brown said.

According to data provided by the Health Department, there are nine air ambulances that are licensed to travel into Arkansas from out of state and transport patients from one Arkansas-based hospital to another.

The Arkansas Children’s Hospital, a not-for-profit hospital that was founded in 1912 and received tax-exempt status in 1970, lists assets totalling more than $691 million in its 2011 filing, and about $48.5 million in revenue after expenses. Although the hospital uses the same fee-for-service billing model common to most hospitals, large capital investments such as medical helicopters depend on philanthropic donors and ongoing fundraising efforts.

Fred Scarborough , president of the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Foundation, the hospital’s fundraising arm, said the organization is projected to raise about $23 million by the end of the current f iscal year. The foundation is midway through a six-year campaign called the Century of Possibility, which began in 2007 with a $160 million fundraising goal.

The foundation divides fundraising efforts into several components, including major contributions, annual contributions, and contributions planned as part of a posthumous bequest. Jennifer Selig, director of annual gift fundraising activities at the foundation, said her department alone is on track to raise between $9 million and $10 million during the current fiscal year. About $3 million is expected to come from an annual six-week giving campaign partnership between the Children’s Miracle Network and Arkansas Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores, which began May 7 and ends June 21.

Selig said the foundation also hoped to raise about $1 million at it’s annual golf tournament and Color of Hope gala in August.

Scarborough said that while Angel One is one of the hospital’s premier assets, the hospital has many other goals in terms of improving pediatric health in Arkansas.

“Right now, we’re one of the least healthy states in the union,” Scarborough said. “We have poor dental health, childhood obesity, childhood food insecurity, and an epidemic of child abuse, where children are injured needlessly. We have got to make Arkansas a healthier place to be a child.”