Response Times:
The EHS LifeFlight adult air medical team and aviation crews are stationed with the helicopter at the Halifax International Airport.

Obstetric, neonatal and pediatric teams are on-call at the IWK. EHS LifeFlight will try to fly to the IWK helipad to pick up these teams and then proceed with the mission.

Between 23:01 and 06:59 hours pilots are on-call and off the base. Between those hours, EHS LifeFlight has a maximum 60-minute “wheels up” response requirement.

EHS LifeFlight responds to requests from physicians or on-scene emergency responders to transport patients either from a hospital or from the scene. An EHS medical director is involved in every decision to transport a patient using EHS LifeFlight and works with the requesting physician to determine whether timing is a critical factor in the response.

Triage:
EHS LifeFlight has one helicopter to serve the entire province of Nova Scotia. On occasion more than one request for air medical transport may occur at the same time.

When this happens patients are triaged or queued based on acuity, resources and tertiary care needs along with time-dependent elements. Generally, scene response requests for trauma take precedence over other calls as these patients may be unstable and have time-dependent pathology.

Other triage decisions are made on a case-by-case basis with communications between medical control physicians as required to expedite care first to the highest acuity patients.

If patient transport is pre-empted due to triage decisions, arrangements may be made for possible fixed-wing transport, ground ambulance transport or queued for EHS LifeFlight helicopter transport when the aircraft and team become available.

Triage decisions are coordinated through the EHS Medical Communications Centre in conjunction with EHS LifeFlight medical control physicians. EHS LifeFlight medical directors review cases that result in triage decisions that are questioned or cause a delay in patient transport.