Specialized Solutions

Most companies look at a contract or opportunity and attempt to achieve success with their current resources by identifying a bid cost that works with their current bottom line to secure the opportunity. At Castle MedFlight we do things a little bit differently. Instead of working within our current margins and teams we look forward and build our capabilities with programs tailored for each client. As we grow our health network CONNECT with partnerships in Healthcare, Transport, and Telemedicine we continually strive to deliver two things:

To our patients we deliver the best patient care experience with the most technically profiecnt clinicians.

To our partners within the insurance industry we deliver contained costs that promote sustainable healthcare.

Caitlyn Cooley Presenting To Class 001

Through working with our network partners we are capable of looking at each contract opportunity and then tailoring a solution specifically for our client's needs. An example of this is currently occurring in our Arizona office where we are developing a new program that is capable of providing a patient care experience that exceeds previous aeromedical transport options. Through working with a team of veteran clinicians with decades of experience that is coupled with our in-network transport partners we are able to deliver a highly proficient, budget minded, option to our client while still ensuring that our patients receive the best possible medical care. 

An aeromedical specialist reviewing notes before a test. 

Our first class of candidates for this program have been working all week learning how Castle MedFlight operates and what their daily duties a flight crew members will look like. Familiarization on our industry leading equipment has already occurred and the final written eating is being completed today. In the coming days we will be getting the team on-board planes for familiarization on how to integrate our equipment into various types of aircraft as well as setting up rotation schedules, call rosters, and communications chains. While this may seem like the least exciting portion of a contract, in reality it is one of the most difficult. Standing up new operations for a new client is what we specialize in though. Our goal is to create the solution and deliver the package as a turn-key program that is immediately ready to integrate into any existing daily operations. 

Where other's continue to raise the cost of healthcare, often times coupling the burden to the patient when insurance will not cover those costs, we have decided as a company to create a model that couples multiple industry leading entities together under a single flag to demonstrate what is possible for the future of medicine. 

Exigent Circumstances

When a family thinks of a vacation to a Central American paradise they rarely imagine it could ever go wrong, let alone being trapped in the country for weeks on end. 

Recently Castle MedFlight was contacted by a family member of a patient who had traveled to Central America for a family reunion. The vacation report was all the guide's had promised and more, but when it came time to come home a unique challenge presented itself. Our client's family member faces severe developmental disabilities, disabilities that were able to be overcome with understanding and patient staff on the United States end at the beginning of the trip but were not taken into consideration on the return leg. Living life with Autism Spectrum Disorders can be difficult however the majority of symptoms during an episode can be overcome with compassion, patience, and communications. 

Upon being notified of the Airlines refusal to work with our client we were capable of chartering a plane and assisting with standby medical treatment for possible outcomes that cannot be overcome with compassion. After 3 hours of conversation with our new friend we were finally able to coax him onto his plane ride home. Where a gate agent decided that a man with disabilities was a safety liability we engaged our patient as a peer and worked within his limitations to enable his success. From early identification of the need to reach out to advocates and experts within Autism Speaks for clinical advice to provide our flight teams to working with customs agents in advance of the plane landing to ensure that they were aware of the intricacies of the case Castle MedFlight handled all aspects of what had become the worst possible vacation scenario proving again that the ability to go the extra mile in patient care is sometimes all that is needed to overcome any barriers. 

Throughout the entire process Autism Speaks was with our team the entire way providing advocacy, advice, and assistance to our team. We cannot say enough good things about their organization. Visit them HERE

Cardiac Critical Care

Transplant cases are the cases that require the most technical proficiency for our team. While we do specialize in ECMO and are accustomed to a number of moving parts to be planned and coordinated for "the dance," moving a transplant patient does not afford the same amount of pre-mission planning. However this last weekend we were contacted to move a patient with a temporary left ventricular assist device who was up against a clock, straining the capabilities of other aeromedical providers.

A RN demonstrates an Impella device. 

Our patient presented to us with an Impella pump that had been implanted for 6 days and who had not been able to make transport two previous times. Castle MedFlight was contacted as the final option by the sending case manager after discovering our history in critical care air transport. An Impella device is a type of temporary heart assist pump that is typically only viable for 7 days before a patient needs to either receive a transplant or be transitioned to a more permanent LVAD platform. What complicated this case was that a heart had already been located for our patient but the previous 2 flight companies were not comfortable with transporting the patient once they discovered that they had suffered from an additional 2 cardiac events and was on the assist device still.

Reassurring the patient, patients family, as well as working alongside the case manager we quickly identified options to move the patient within the rapidly closing window until transplant. We put a countdown timer on the wall and got to work. I still am amazed at how rapidly our team can be ready to roll once tasks are divided among the team. An airframe and crew were alerted and ready to fly within 30 minutes, receiving hospital was notified, transport on both ends was coordinated, landing permissions secured, and when we called the sending case manager back 60 minutes later we informed her all we were awaiting was approval from the insurance company. 

An Impella device implanted in the left ventricle. 

To say the case manager was shocked is an understatement. We settled in for the wait while the bureaucratic processes turned. We were delayed overnight awaiting approval but once we received the approval first thing the next morning our plane was airborne and team was beds in 130 minutes, or the length of an average feature film. Delivering the patient and family member to the transplant hospital another member of our team met the entire crew on ground to ensure that the family was taken care of with a warm meal and care basket waiting completing another successful mission that others said could not be done.

For our patients and their family members we pride ourselves on providing the best critical care, anywhere, especially when working within a narrow window to save a life. 

Care in the Caribbean

This weekend was a busy one here at Castle MedFlight. Working nonstop we managed to secure our second domestic air transport contract with our second major insurance provider as well as simultaneously flying our first flight for them.  Castle MedFlight is known for our ability to support almost all operations within 90 minutes or less of mission alert globally and in this case, it saved a life.

Our patient was transferred from the Caribbean to one of our partnered facilities in Miami for treatment and through the whole process we made sure both the patient and the client were given the best treatment from an American physician at their bedside while sick in the Caribbean down to a luxury full-size SUV to drive the family members from the airport to the hospital where she was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a condition in which our patient's immune system was attacking their nerves. In the United States this would be considered an emergency situation on it's own, in the Caribbean being treated by a clinic not capable of diagnosing the condition it could have been fatal. 

At Castle MedFlight we handle all details for case managers to allow them to take the time they need to complete their operations instead of worrying about minor details. This is all part of our mission to provide the most trusted critical care, anywhere!