Air ambulances: Speed matters

National alliance of hospitals provides wide coverage when lives are at stake

The first national alliance of hospitals providing air ambulance services took off on Sunday, covering vast regions in eight provinces with swift evacuations for people from remote rural areas to clogged city streets.

Air ambulances have become a key supplement in medical emergencies to save lives despite congestion or remote location, leading to the growth of such services in China, said Wang Jian'an, head of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine.

On Sunday morning, a helicopter took off from Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, and picked up a 58-year-old patient in neighboring Huzhou who needed an emergency operation. It brought the patient to a landing pad at the hospital in Hangzhou.

The round trip was brief: Within two hours, including flight time, the patient, surnamed Ding - who had suffered a heart attack - was out of surgery.

"The helicopter was so quick and convenient that it made me feel like this hospital was located in front of my house," he said.

Without the helicopter, it would likely take an ambulance more than two hours just for the return trip, instead of 30 minutes by air.

Eyeing the huge potential of air emergency services, the hospital, along with 13 other large hospitals nationwide, initiated the China Air Emergency Hospital Alliance, which is "the largest domestic alliance in the air ambulance service industry", according to Qian Siwei, head of China Air Medical Co, a major domestic provider in the field, on Sunday.

Together with the 14 large provincial hospitals, another 50 medical facilities at the city and county level in Zhejiang have joined in, improving the network in the eastern coastal province, Wang said.

Currently, 11 helicopters are part of the newly formed emergency air medical services network, able to transfer patients within a radius of 300 kilometers. A jet is also standing by, which can cover a longer distance, Qian said.

The new network covers eight provinces in eastern Zhejiang and Jiangsu, northwestern Shaanxi and Gansu, southwestern Yunnan, central Hunan and southern Hainan and Guangdong provinces, Qian said, adding that the network could also cover some islands in the South China Sea.

The helicopter can cruise at up to 300 kilometers per hour, which means a patient in Hangzhou could be reached within 7 minutes. It's also easy to land a helicopter in small flat spaces such as community squares. A helicopter can even hover when picking up a patient.

An air ambulance service doesn't come cheap. It costs as much as 30,000 yuan ($4,500) per hour, Qian said. But several insurance plans with premiums ranging from 399 yuan to 1,399 yuan, can help a patient defray the cost, he added.