VCU Life Evac adds fetal monitoring capabilities

By Malorie Burkett

The Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center’s Life Evac Program this month expanded its services by equipping each aircraft with fetal monitoring capabilities to aid in the transport of high-risk obstetric patients.  

Life Evac, the 24-hour transport service for critically ill or injured patients, is the only air medical service in Virginia with fetal monitors on each of its helicopters.

In order to become familiar with the new device, VCU Life Evac Crew members completed the Advanced Concepts of Obstetrical Transport training program – a nationally recognized, comprehensive maternal-transport training course.

According to VCU Life Evac, air medical services have lacked the ability to continuously monitor fetal and maternal heart rates with real-time wave form technology. But, with their training and the new Philips FM-2 fetal monitors, crew members are now able to continuously monitor a fetus’ heart rate and the mother’s contractions.

“With the declining availability of obstetrical services in remote areas of Virginia, we knew that this type of transport would become critical to underserved communities,” said Robert Hamilton, VCU Life Evac program director. “We identified the need for this type of transport and aggressively sought feedback from many physicians across Virginia in order to bring these capabilities to those areas.”

The new 5-pound device will allow for continuous monitoring of both mother and fetus, including twins, while in transit from one facility to the next. Tracings are viewed on a color display and can later be downloaded and printed.

Hamilton also said the crew will be able to more quickly detect fetal distress and increased uterine activity, which in many cases can help stop an impending delivery or fetal demise.

VCU Life Evac responds to inter-facility and scene requests within a 100-mile radius of its home base in Dinwiddie. The aircraft is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week with a specially trained flight nurse, flight paramedic and pilot. Along with their extensive backgrounds in surgical trauma and cardiac critical care, each member of the VCU Life Evac medical team also has been trained in the critical care of burn and neurologically impaired patients.

For more information, call VCU Life Evac at 804.722.0914.