Life Flight & Air Med

[qlajlu]

I started a new thread because I think we should have one that concentrates on the two medical flight services in the area. Also to report that I have heard Life Flight several times this afternoon on their TG of 17280 talking with their base and they were talking in the clear. We established in another thread during the time of the Crandall Mine disaster that Life Flight was employing digital, and I think we also established that they were encrypting as well.

Today they were/are engaged in a search in Weber County. I'm not sure what/who or where, only that Weber is supervising the search.

At any rate, I felt that y'all should know that Life Flight has decided to flatter us with their comms...for how long...who knows?

 

[bneilson]

I have been copying the medical choppers for some time now in the clear. I think the part that was going encrypted was the patient reports back to the hospital. I believe this was being done on TG 58880.

But I have been hearing their dispatch traffic and location checks for quite some time in the clear and of course the landing traffic on LZ1 and LZ2.

 

[qlajlu]

Maybe I have been asleep at the switch because yesterday is the first time I have noticed Life Flight's radio traffic in the clear other than when they were on LZ 1 or LZ 2. I have heard Air Med constantly...when they fly...but Life Flight was like flying in the shadows, and then we had that thread that more or less established that Life Flight was using digital, so I was surprised yesterday.

I may be wrong, but I was not aware that any of the hospitals had digital encryption capability for patient reports. If they do it's surprising they don't insist that all such reports be sent that way. UFA certainly doesn't have the capability. bneilson, do you have information on this that you would like to share?

 

[LGLHOOK]

I too have heard Life Flight talking to their dispatch for a while about position or the dispatcher letting them know that they are on stand-by or have to fly. the TG that I don't think I have heard them on is the Admin. or Provo channels I have listed for Life Flight. I have heard a few times on the Hospital TG's (LDS/UMED) some patient info as they are flying enroute to the hospital. I don't know if they are doing their comms by satelite phone to the ER's or not but I have heard them on the respective TG's a hand full of times. I really don't monitor the hospitals too much, but I guess that would be a new thing to listen for when you hear the bird in the airon LZ-1 or LZ-2.

 

[gldavis]

I forgot about it, but a couple of weeks ago, I heard UCAN Radio Engineers (TG 4096) Talking about the encrypted radio on the Lifeflight chopper not working. It sounded like he was having dificulty figureing out who it wasn't working. They agred to work on it the next day. If I remember corectly, it was around the 18th of Oct.

 

[lavy]

You are correct, one of the aircraft is having problems with its radio. That's the one you are hearing transmiting in the clear. The rest of the aircraft are still using digital encrypted. As far as the hospitals, they either contact them in the open on the hospital channels, which is rare, or more often, they contact the lifeflight base on digital encrypted and then the base calls the hospital landline. They also call from scenes on the cellphone. Also, both lifeflight and airmed have bought new flight tracking programs that are in varying states of installation that will both constantly track the aircraft with gps and also offer sattelite phone service so that they can call the er's directly without worrying about people listening in. The hospitals are far more worried about this (i.e. lifeflight and airmed administration) than ems. Hippa is the big buzz word for patient confidentiality. However, HIPPA allows for radio transmissions as it understands that they are neccessary. The hospitals are just hyper sensative. So don't plan on hearing from lifeflight for too much longer, they will get the radio fixed and go back into the dark.

 

[Rolfman]

It is starting to sound like AirMed is finally getting their OuterLink system working. They still have their days when they can not track the birds though.

 

[enosjones]

AIRMED has been talking alot more than LifeFlight has. I haven't heard LifeFlight in at least a couple or 3 weeks if not longer, same with the digital ones, 58880 or the other one which isn't used much anyway. As far as HIPPA our hospital here hasn't talked on the radio much for about 2 yrs. Just a few times off hand when cell phones are lacking or out of services.

 

[N7OLQ]

A friend who dispatches for LifeFlight said the move to digital was for competitive reasons. I guess they feel having all their activity in the clear is causing them to lose business to competitors (not sure if he meant AirMed or ground-based competition).

 

[LGLHOOK]

Airmed / U of U Comms

I have been hearing alot more of the Airmed choppers giving the U patient info either on the ground or enroute to the hospital. They are doing this on the U of U Med TG. I would not think that the HIPPA would come into play since they don't give a patient name would it???

 

[qlajlu]

I have been hearing alot more of the Airmed choppers giving the U patient info either on the ground or enroute to the hospital. They are doing this on the U of U Med TG. I would not think that the HIPPA would come into play since they don't give a patient name would it???

UFA and SLC FD do it all the time with all the hospitals and I have never heard of any backlashes from it. The VA hospital even requires the patient's last name and the last four numbers of the SSN with any report.

 

[KT7L]

Not to sound like a nitpicker -- But it's Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) -- Yeah, I used to consult to the Health Care Industry.

Here's the 'loosely worded Technical Standard applicable to this Thread:

Technical Safeguards - controlling access to computer systems and enabling covered entities to protect communications containing PHI transmitted electronically over open networks from being intercepted by anyone other than the intended recipient.
Information systems housing PHI must be protected from intrusion. When information flows over open networks, some form of encryption must be utilized. If closed systems/networks are utilized, existing access controls are considered sufficient and encryption is optional.

It would seem to me that ANY patient Info transmitted by AirMed would fall under this paragraph.

 

[Utah_Viper]

Slightly off topic, still AirMed.......

Have any of you heard the dispatcher and pilot with the Star Wars references? UMED, is the Death Star. The chopper is the Millennium Falcon. Some other ones to.... its funny stuff. I have heard it on quite a few times.

 

[qlajlu]

I'm not sure that the powers at UMED would appreciate being known as "The Death Star." Kinda has some ominous connotations.