HALO-Flight Earns Air Medical Service Award From Texas DSHS

The Texas Department of State Health Services presented HALO-Flight with their 2019 EMS Air Medical Service Award at the recent Texas EMS Conference in Fort Worth.

The Air Medical Service Award, as reported on the DSHS website, “honors a public or private air medical service in Texas that has demonstrated the highest standards in providing patient care, leading the way in innovation and commitment to patient care.”

“We are indeed honored to be recognized with this Award,” said Tom Klassen, HALO-Flight Executive Director. “Placing safety and patient care as our top priorities guides every decision we make. From the professionals who care for the patients, to the professionals who care for the aircraft, we are grateful for this distinguishing acknowledgement.”

In 2019, HALO-Flight rolled out the pre-hospital blood program providing blood transfusion services on every flight. Within days of the roll out, a three-year-old patient received pre-hospital blood while in route to Driscoll Children’s Hospital where physicians acknowledged it as life-saving care.

Innovation fostered by HALO-Flight also resulted in life-saving safety in 2019 when ballistic windshields strategically placed on all four aircraft protected the flight crew following two bird strikes. The technology, provided to HALO-Flight by the Ed Rachel Foundation, is state-of-the-art in aircraft safety ensuring no patient, crew or aircraft damage from bird strikes.

Since 1987, HALO-Flight has given 24 hours-a-day service to South Texans with air ambulance transportation to higher levels of care on their worst day when they are victims of accidents, illness and injury and need rapid transport to higher levels of care. In addition to transport from the scene of accidents, the Mission of HALO-Flight also includes inter-facility transfers of patients needing care only available at trauma facilities in Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Houston or Austin.