Former Foundation for Air-Medical Research and Education (FARE) is renamed to reflect organization’s increased global involvement and influence
Alexandria, VA – MedEvac Foundation International™ formerly the Foundation for Air-Medical Research and Education (FARE) has undergone a name change to reflect its growing international focus and donor base. The Foundation was first established in 2000 by the Association of Air Medical Services (AAMS) to support charitable endeavors and research and education for the air-medical and critical-care medical-transport community.
“The MedEvac Foundation International is the first organization of its kind to engage, mobilize, and empower people and organizations to make a difference in medical transport across the globe,” said MedEvac Foundation International Chair Kevin Hutton, MD, FACEP. “The vision of MedEvac Foundation International is to ensure that every patient in need has access to safe, quality air-medical and critical-care ground transport. Through global research, education, outreach, and charitable services, we hope to achieve these goals for medical transport patients everywhere.”
MedEvac Foundation International’s key charitable and educational endeavors include its:
- Family Grant Fund, which was recently established to provide financial assistance to families immediately following a fatal air-medical crash.
- Children’s Scholarship Fund, which supports higher education for children who have lost a parent, grandparent or guardian as a result of an air-medical accident.
- Medical Transport Leadership Institute scholarship, funded by Metro Aviation, Inc., which is awarded based on the applicant’s involvement, industry achievement and commitment to critical-care transport services, and which allows the recipient to become a CMTE (Certified Medical Transport Executive).
- Sponsorship of an annual Air Medical Transport Conference (AMTC) “METI Cup” competition, funded by Medical Education Technologies, Inc., in which competing teams practice and display their emergency patient-care skills on METI’s state-of-the-art emergency-care patient simulator.
MedEvac Foundation International’s growing global involvement and public outreach has been reflected in a series of international forums, where leaders from the global air-medical community gather during national AMTC and International AIRMED conferences to discuss common goals and challenges. In addition, the Foundation has translated its Air Medicine: Accessing the Future of Health Care public-policy paper into 11 languages and in 2008 sponsored the METI Cup team winners’ attendance at the International AIRMED.
Aviation and patient safety, in particular, are among the core values of the Foundation, which has introduced several initiatives to promote a greater level of safety, involvement, awareness and commitment amongst medical transport operators and crews. To that end, MedEvac Foundation International is funding a soon-to-be-available online database containing an annotated bibliography of critical-care-transport safety literature, as well as a monthly On the Fly newsletter featuring issues specific to aviation and patient safety.
In addition, MedEvac Foundation International supports the “Vision Zero” program (see www.aams.org/Content/NavigationMenu/MediaRoom/PressReleases/VisionZeroFINALletterhead082109.pdf),
which is dedicated to reducing and eliminating medical-transport events that result in serious injury or fatality – through greater safety awareness, vigilance, and avoidance of complacency.
Another core value of MedEvac Foundation International is to uphold the quality and financial viability of medical transport through research and education grants and commissioned studies. In 2008, the Foundation awarded 16 research and educational grants totaling $198,000, and over the past four years has funded 40 grants totaling nearly half a million dollars.
Nationally recognized safety-related research initiatives that were awarded grant funding in 2008 included a multi-discipline project that examined opportunities for safety improvement in helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) and a project that analyzed accident and fatal accident rates over a 20-year period, both by Ira Blumen, MD, FACEP.
Safety-related education initiatives that are receiving grant funding in 2009 include an educational webinar on ambulance ground-transfer safety and a digital safety-stories series. Research projects selected to receive grant funding in 2009 include a study assessing cognitive fatigue in air-medical crews; an examination of sleep inertia on EMS pilot performance; a study focusing on time savings by rapid EMS antibiotic therapy for fractures; and research assessing the use in helicopter transport of portable transcranial ultrasound as a treatment for strokes.
About MedEvac Foundation International
The MedEvac Foundation International operates as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Formerly known as FARE (Foundation for Air-Medical Research and Education), the Foundation supports research, education, outreach, and charitable services to advance medical transport worldwide.