Safety Summit Recap by AAMS President Sandy Kinkade |
The table facilitators are still compiling the notes taken during the Safety Summit held July 25th but I wanted to provide a summary in the interim. I’d like to begin by thanking those who attended and apologizing to the many that wanted to attend but were told the space was full. It was necessary to limit the number of attendees in order to create a setting where two-way dialogue could ensue, rather than have a large number of people sit and listen to another presentation. There were 134 participants with a cross-functional representation of pilots, communication specialists, physicians, paramedics, nurses, program directors, operators, regulatory agencies, insurance providers and consultants. The room was set up with 14 round tables and the participants were pre-assigned to assure professional expertise was distributed as evenly as possible.
The meeting was kicked off by a presentation from Bell Helicopter Chief of Flight Safety Roy Fox who is also a member of the International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST). Roy presented statistics gathered from HEMS crashes from 1998 to present to baseline the group in terms of causal factors. STARS Medical Director Dr. Greg Powell then gave a brief discussion from an international perspective. The key take away is the global nature of our industry and how many eyes are watching what the U.S. does in response to the crash rate. AAMS Government Relations Manager Chris Eastlee gave an overview on the current state of affairs related to efforts on the hill to require equipment on future EMS aircraft. Turbomeca USA CEO Russ Spray facilitated the remainder of the day. As the former CEO of Rocky Mountain Helicopters, Russ brings a vast amount of experience related to the many aspects involved in the safe operation of a program. He shared his experience of the mid-80’s when the industry was dealing with an increase in fatal HEMS crashes.
To view the presentations given during the 2008 Safety Summit, please visit the following link: http://www.aams.org/Content/NavigationMenu/EducationMeetings/default.htm
Seven discussion themes were decided on based on input received from a survey posted on www.thehelicoptersource.com. There were 651 responses posted with a lot of interesting comments included. The survey link is still active so I encourage you to take some time to review for your own knowledge. A special thank you goes to Mac Garrison, a pilot with Hermann LifeFlight, for sharing the results with this group. The seven topics that were discussed included:
There are some obvious overlaps in these discussion points, but it was felt that obtaining input from as many perspectives was optimal. A table facilitator had been identified and briefed prior to the start of the meeting and was responsible for capturing the recommended actions. A standardized template was utilized and then collected by Monica Newman (IAFP/ BCCTPC Account Executive) to process. Let me share just a few comments I jotted down but know that a more detailed report will follow soon.
Training
SMS
AMRM
Communications
Competition
Human Factors
Standard Operating Procedures
There was much more but I just wanted to share a few highlights from my notes. You will notice “Technology” was not listed as a discussion topic. There is no doubt NVG, H-TAWS, EGPWS, TCAS, cockpit recording devices, etc. are valuable in the goal of crash reduction. These are all great tools and many programs either already utilize them or have plans to do so with future systems integration. Much of the technology aspect and the current challenges related to approval/implementation were discussed at the FAA meeting held July 11th so the need to focus on the topics listed above was decided upon by the organizing associations.
So now what? Shawn Salter, AAMS board member-at-large made a comment just before the start that I feel captures the essence of this meeting. Rather than calling this a “Summit” it should be called a “Safety Base Camp” as the word summit implies successfully climbing to the top. There have been previous safety related meetings, some which did produce changes that have been implemented but there remains a lot of climbing to the summit ahead. This “base camp” meeting was just a step up the mountain. The work begins now and will require the active participation of everyone. I sincerely hope that the disappointment felt by those that were unable to attend when the space was deemed full will strongly consider the future opportunity to work when the piles of notes have been disseminated and structured into target focus topics that will need a great deal of expertise in making the recommended actions into reality.
A closing thought that came out of the meeting was the need to create a standardized definition of “safety culture” - a definition that provides the framework for the tasks ahead as well as the benchmark for how we will all define success. Please stay tuned for the detailed notes and recommended next steps. Thank you to all the associations who stepped up to the plate on short notice and led the way to organize the “Safety Base Camp” on the 25th. It speaks volumes how much work can be accomplished with a common goal.
Please visit AAMS at www.aams.org for 24/7 information on everything from membership benefits to the latest government relations efforts in the emergency medical transport community.
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