CareFlight in the Northern Territory cares for over 7000 patients every year across its Top End Medical Retrieval Service and interstate retrieval service using a fleet of rotary wing, turbo-prop and jet aircraft. Operating across both the pre-hospital and retrieval spheres with our selection of specialist aeromedical aircraft allows us to provide a truly integrated service to our patients. Many of our missions provide critical care to some of most unwell patients in very remote parts of Australia, with flight times frequently up to two hours, and critically unwell patients often in our care for six hours or more. A key aspect of care of our critically unwell patients is the provision of advanced airway management, in any environment which we encounter.

 

In response to these challenges, we train and hone the skills of our medical crews in all aspects of advanced airway management so we can provide the very finest hospital level critical care to each of our patients, no matter where they are. With the capacity to provide the most advanced gold-standard airway management techniques such as awake fibre-optic intubation, the skills and knowledge brought by our crews often surpasses that immediately available in many emergency departments.

 

This presentation will showcase the intensive training which our flight doctors and nurses undertake, the knowledge and skills we expect from our crews, the techniques and equipment which we utilise, and the innovative techniques we practice in pre-hospital and retrieval medicine.