Life Flight Earns Prestigious CAMTS Accreditation

Every three years, Memorial Hermann Life Flight® undergoes review by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems (CAMTS), a peer review organization dedicated to improving patient care and transport safety through a dynamic accreditation process. Life Flight completed its most recent review in April 2021, and once again earned the prestigious CAMTS accreditation.

“CAMTS standards for air medical services are like the Joint Commission standards for hospitals,” says Life Flight Chief Flight Nurse Rudy Cabrera, RN. “They evaluate our program from top to bottom.” To obtain accreditation, a service must demonstrate substantial compliance with specific criteria for each of the following topics:

• Aircraft/surface configuration
• Communications
• Helipads
• Infection control
• Legal requirements and ethical practice
• Medical direction and medical protocols
• Mission statement and scope of patient care
• Qualified maintenance
• Qualified pilots and drivers
• Quality and utilization management
• Risk analysis
• Rotorwing, fixed wing and surface operations
• Safety management systems
• Scheduling and fatigue management
• Training and educating medical and operations personnel

Cabrera says CAMTS also looks at a service’s innovation, such as Life Flight’s new helipad, its use of blood products, its direct-to-OR process, its standard setting protocol for air transport of patients with SARS CoV-2, its K-9 program and training and its process for transporting ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) patients.