Statewide air medical transports for Massachusetts

In 1997, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) established a process to centralize air medical transport information. This database is one of the first statewide, population-based sources for civilian rotary-wing air medical transports (U.S. Coast Guard, police, and military missions are not included). The purpose of this database is to facilitate MDPH review of air medical transport service utilization, with input from a multidisciplinary committee. This article discusses the challenges in producing uniform data from multiple service submissions and presents aggregate "baseline" utilization information for 1996. These data served as a starting point for later studies using data linkage. This indexed article is the first to report statewide, population-based data for all types of air medical helicopter transports. The only other indexed "statewide air medical transport" paper focused on scene transports to trauma centers in Pennsylvania. A previous article by the authors in the July-September 2000 Air Medical Journal provided an overview of air medical transports for fatal motor vehicle crashes for 1 region of the state.