Survival Flight: Simply the Best

Soaring above their peers just as their helicopters and airplanes soar above the fields and forests of Michigan and the nation, the U-M Health System’s Survival Flight was named the best air medical program in the country last fall.

The award, given in Nashville, Tennessee, at the annual convention of the Association of Air Medical Services, recognized Survival Flight’s excellence in patient care, leadership, safety, innovation, ingenuity and community service among the more than 250 air ambulance programs in the United States.

Flight Nurse Specialists, from left to right: Mickey Evans, R.N.; Denise Hubert, R.N.; Mary Kay Smith, R.N.; Kris Nelson, R.N.

U-M’s 16-year-old program makes over 1,300 flights each year, traveling more than 200,000 miles to bring patients and transplant organs to and from the U-M hospitals and other health care facilities. In all, its staff has been involved in the care and transport of nearly 20,000 patients, from critically ill newborns to crash victims and transplant candidates.

Medical Director Mark Lowell acknowledged the Survival Flight team in accepting the award. “All of us at Survival Flight—from pilots, flight nurses and doctors in the air to dispatchers, communications experts, maintenance crews and emergency staff on the ground — take great pride in this recognition,” he said.

“As a surgeon, I treat many patients who have been transported by Survival Flight, and I know how intensely grateful they are for the speed and quality of the team’s service during a critical time in their care,” says Lloyd Jacobs, M.D., professor of surgery and chief operating officer of the University of Michigan Health System. “As an administrator, I am doubly proud to congratulate this fine team on this national recognition of their achievements.”