Global health newspaper-style magazine renowned for its informed and news-conscious web columns, Insights Care is pleased to present Angels of Flight Canada Inc., fills an important niche. They mesh the latest in medical care with the needs of flying, a master and fount of commitment in the niche marketplace of air medical transport.
Established in 1988, Angels of Flight Canada Inc. is a global industry leader in air medical transportation services with specialty expertise in the transportation and care of patients in or across national and international boundaries. Led by President/CEO Gail Courneyea of a premier air medical transportation service organization, demonstrating resilience, adaptability, and visionary ingenuity.
Angels of Flight Canada Inc. was established in an inspired moment: Canadian hospitals needed an air medical service with experienced staff that would include nurses, in addition to paramedics. After completing her training, Gail was dismayed to learn the air medical transportation business was dominated by paramedics, with no room for nurses. But instead of accommodating the restrictions which the system imposed upon her to share, she opted to forge on her own path. “If there wasn’t a career for me, I decided I would make one,” Gail recounts. And thus in 1988, she began Angels of Flight Canada, a business which would fly within Canada and around the world.
The business started off as an air medical escort service specialist, which transported critically ill patients hospital to hospital safely. The business evolved over the years to encompass comprehensive air ambulance services, both local and foreign. “We found these needs weren’t localized – that patients worldwide needed our service in complicated patient transfers,” Gail reveals.
One of the best things about Angels of Flight that differentiates it from the rest of the air medical transport industry is that it focuses on special training. Air medical transport is not so much about getting the patient from point A to point B, and more about learning both the medical principles of the air and the atmosphere of flight itself. Having this in mind, Gail and her staff created a balanced educational program to ready nurses to practice within this specialty. The program ranges from the physiological impact of flight on patients to emergency procedures during flights.
Nurses are taught the mechanics of airplanes, how disease is impacted at altitude, and responding to a medical emergency in flight. Paramedics, respiratory therapists, doctors, and even medical directors are taught so that the entire team knows about air medical transport difficulties.
