Medevac Services in the NWT

AMS provides medical teams for all medevac missions in the Northwest Territories. The following guide will help to answer an questions you may have about this service.

Who Delivers Medevac Services in the NWT?

Medevac services are delivered through business partnerships under contract with the NWT Department of Health and Social Services. Medical teams are provided by Advanced Medical Solutions, while aircraft and flight crews are provided by Air Tindi in Yellowknife and Aklak Air in Inuvik.

How is a medevac mission launched?

  1. Emergency Department Physician at a receiving hospital determines the need for air medical transport either from their own department, or from a Community Health Centre after consultation with staff there.
  2. The Physician submits the medevac request to the Medical Travel Office who will serve as the coordinator for the remainder of the medevac. 
  3. Medical Travel notifies the appropriate air carrier (Air Tindi in Yellowknife or Aklak Air in Inuvik) of the mission request.
  4. Pilots check weather and airstrip conditions at the destination as well as at least two alternate sites. If safety requirements are met the plots report to Medical Travel that the mission is a “go” and file a flight plan with Transport Canada and calculate fuel loads etc.
  5. Medical Travel dispatches the on-call medevac team members by cell phone.
  6. Medevac team contacts the sending facility for a patient report. The information obtained during this report is essential for determining how many team members are sent, specialized equipment or medications that may be needed, appropriate destination and other considerations.
  7. Medevac Team and Flight Crew rendezvous at the aircraft, load and secure equipment and launch.

How long does it take to launch a medevac?

Once the pilots have determined it is safe to proceed the goal is to be airborne within 60 minutes.

Who is the medevac team?

At AMS, medevac teams are composed of Critical Care Flight Nurses and/or Critical Care Flight Paramedics. Both disciplines are used interchangeably and all staff are experienced and qualified in all manner of emergency and critical care treatment.

What can the medevac team do?

All medevac team members are experienced and skilled in a wide range of treatments and therapies including: rapid sequence induction or sedation; orotracheal intubation; mechanical ventilation; emergency cricothyrotomy; needle decompression and chest tube management; trancutaneous pacing; cardioversion; emergency obstetrics; pediatrics; initiation and transport of blood products and much more.

Teams carry a broad assortment of equipment including Zoll CCT transport monitors; Alaris MiniMed 3-channel IV pumps; Pulmonetics LTV 1000 ventilators; BabyPOD2 neonatal transport modules as well as a variety of spinal immobilization and other equipment.

How many team members fly on each mission?

All missions are staffed either by one or two medevac personnel depending on the nature of the mission. Consideration is given to clinical status, anticipated complications, safety and other factors.

For example a patient suffering an acute MI or premature labour would necessitate a two-practitioner flight team due to the high risk of complication.

How busy is the medevac service?

Between the two bases – Yellowknife and Inuvik – the medevac service flies over 1200 missions each year to 33 communities throughout the NWT. We also provide back-up services to communities in Nunavut, the Yukon Territories, and northern regions of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. We transport critical, emergent and urgent patients as well as perform repatriation flights to return patients to their communities.

What Types of missions does the team fly?

Critical and emergent patients constitute 13% of transports in Yellowknife (129 patients/yr) and 27% of transports in Inuvik (72 patients/yr). These patients often require advanced intervention, including intubation, arterial and central line monitoring, the initiation and titration of inotropic infusions, administration of blood products and monitoring of chest tubes in both the pediatric and adult populations.

The most common chief complains is cardiac at 22% followed by trauma at 18%, GI at 12.3% and respiratory at 8%.