By David Pierce
The New Hampshire Union Leader
LEBANON, N.H. — Meredith’s Les Haynes had firsthand experience with the struggles people in rural areas of New Hampshire have with access to lifesaving health care.
A resident of the Lakes Region, Haynes credited the Dartmouth Health Advance Response Team (DHART) with saving his life several times by getting him to critical care far from home. So in his will, he left Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center $6.7 million as a thank-you.
That money will pay for two new DHART ambulances and six new emergency medical technicians (EMTs) now. Then over the next few years, the gift will pay for two or three more EMTs, four paramedics and two or more dispatchers.
“We’re really changing the face of rural health care and the way we can get rural patients access to that health care,” said Mike Mulhern, director of DHART.
DHART operates two helicopters and two ambulances, with one each at DHMC in Lebanon and Manchester. The ambulance fleet will immediately double to four with plans to add two to four additional ambulances in the next few years, Mulhern said.
“With what we have now, we transport on average about 3,500 patients a year. So those extra two ambulances will probably give us the ability to serve another 3,000 patients or so, depending on where the need is,” he said.
DHART’s primary coverage area is New Hampshire and Vermont, but it provides mutual aid to Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York.
The new ambulances will help DHART expand on its critical care by adding more basic life support (BLS) and advanced life support (ALS) transportation, which have been limited due to demand for critical care in rural areas.
Basic life support transportation includes taking patients home when the family car isn’t enough or when their homes can’t accommodate a wheelchair or someone with limited mobility because of a health condition. More BLS means opening up beds sooner at DHMC or other hospitals because many times, immobile patients remain admitted longer before being discharged.
“We’ve noticed that there’s been a really large need in New Hampshire for BLS and ALS services, not necessarily always needing the helicopter but some less-acute patient population,” Mulhern said.
Transporting 3,000 more patients a year might be the “tip of the iceberg,” he said.
“Once we start showing that this is working, we can do much better,” Mulhern said.
Karen Teixeira, a flight nurse for DHART’s helicopters, welcomed the expansion, saying it will help her and her crew members do their jobs better while increasing their workforce.
“It’s going to open up beds at Dartmouth, which is going to allow us to transport more patients to Dartmouth who need critical care, who need to be in the ICU beds,” she said.
DHART flies about 2,500 to 3,000 helicopter missions a year as one of three nonprofit air ambulance services in the Northeast. Mulhern said his team logs about 1,000 hours in the air a year on each helicopter, and they’ll be looking to replace one of the two soon.
“We are looking to replace a helicopter in the next two years, so it’s possible some of that money could go toward that replacement,” he said.
A new medical helicopter goes for about $10 million and lasts about 10 years before the maintenance gets too costly, Mulhern said.
For people in northern New Hampshire and Vermont like Haynes, DHART makes a huge difference, Mulhern said. Haynes, for his part, frequently volunteered his own time to drive members of his community to and from appointments at DHMC.
” Les Haynes was dedicated to ensuring everyone in the community has access to high-quality, lifesaving health care. His gifts to Dartmouth Health are a shining example of the power of philanthropy to transform a challenge into an opportunity,” said Matthew P. Haag, chief development officer for Dartmouth Health.
“Les was more than just a patient and neighbor to all of us at Dartmouth Health. He was also a vital partner in our work to make sure everyone across northern New England can lead their healthiest lives possible,” he said.
DHART has been around for 30 years and provides transportation to the closest medical facilities that meet the needs of each patient, which means hospitals in Boston, Worcester, Mass., Maine Medical Center and others — not just DHMC, which is the state’s only highest-level trauma center.
“We understand that access to health care is really tough in northern New Hampshire, specifically right now,” Mulhern said. “We recognize that need and we’re working hard to really come up with the plans to fix that problem and increase the level of access to health care that people in New Hampshire and Vermont really deserve.”
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