For the week of Dec 26, 2001 - Jan 1, 2002

St. Luke’s gets different helicopter ambulance

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By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer

St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center in Boise created its own helicopter ambulance service last Tuesday. The move could duplicate services already provided by an existing air ambulance company. Whether the services will compete and affect costs to patients is unclear.

"The short answer is we’re going to have two flight services really wanting to meet our needs," said Dr. Keith Sivertson, medical director for emergency services at St. Luke’s Wood River Medical Center, two miles south of Ketchum.

St. Luke’s said its new service will honor prepaid Life Flight memberships, which, for a small annual fee, help defray the $7,500 average cost of a helicopter ambulance ride.

Sivertson believes the two helicopter operators will not be able to pass along any financial loses that competition could create to patients, but others disagree.

Until now, the Boise-based St. Alphonsus Medical Center’s Life Flight has provided almost all of St. Luke’s helicopter ambulance needs. But on Dec. 18, St. Luke’s announced that it had contracted with Idaho Helicopters, a company that operates medical aircraft and provides pilots, and would create its own helicopter service similar to Life Flight. Idaho Helicopters is scheduled to have an aircraft equipped to St. Luke’s specifications, painted with the St. Luke’s logo and ready to fly by the spring.

St. Luke’s primary objective is to transport patients between hospitals, but the focus of Life Flight is to respond to emergencies, said St. Luke’s spokesperson Beth Toal. "I don’t see this as a competitive decision, but a complimentary one. Life Flight will still be able to bring patients to" St. Luke’s.

But Chris Marselle, the director of St. Alphonsus Life Flight, said Life Flight has provided both hospital-to-hospital flights and emergency response for at least 15 years. She said St. Luke’s new service could "potentially" affect Life Flight’s business. "There could be duplication of services, and that could be very costly to the community."

"Frankly, I’m surprised," said Marselle, who found out about St. Luke’s new contract in a newspaper article last Wednesday.

The complex contractual arrangements that make helicopter ambulances possible typically involve an aircraft vendor, an air ambulance company and a hospital.

Life Flight ended 15 years of contracts with vendor Idaho Helicopters in October and switched to a nationally run vendor. St. Luke’s new contract brings Idaho Helicopters back to St. Luke’s.

"We really like the service Idaho Helicopters provided, so we contracted directly with them," Toal said.

"What it boils down to is St. Luke’s needs were not being met by Life Flight," said Sivertson. In the Wood River Valley, for example, "people (here) are pretty damn noise-sensitive." With the new contract, St. Luke’s would be able to use a quieter helicopter with no tail rotor. The new helicopter would also be able to more easily carry two patients.

Sivertson said, however, that physicians would choose the best helicopter for each patient’s needs regardless of the helicopter’s hospital affiliation.

"We really don’t care who meets those needs—whether it’s St. Al’s or St. Luke’s doesn’t matter," he said.

Sivertson said he doesn’t believe there is enough demand to support the two services long-term and that "within five years, we’ll be back to one program."

St. Luke’s Wood River Medical Center transports four to six patients by helicopter each month.

 

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