Medical Air Ambulance Relocates to Galesburg
OSF HealthCare is pleased to announce that OSF Life Flight has started the daily relocation of a Peoria-based helicopter to OSF St. Mary Medical Center in Galesburg, Illinois. This repositioning will occur weather permitting, during daytime hours and will provide Galesburg and the surrounding communities faster access to care in certain emergent cases.
“This is going to impact our patients within our community greatly," said Roxanna Crosser, President of OSF St. Mary Medical Center. "The turnaround time that a patient will be able to go to Peoria will decrease by as much as 45 minutes. So it’s really exciting for us to have a helicopter right here in the Galesburg market.”
The 24-hour medical air ambulance logs more than 2,000 flights annually with four American Eurocopter EC 145 helicopters. Regarded as one of the top models available for air medical ambulance use, they can transport up to two patients and four crew members. The OSF aviation team includes 15 pilots and dozens of flight nurses, flight paramedics, flight communication specialists, mechanics, and other support personnel.
"Life Flight is the busiest flight program in the state. A large percentage of them come from the western region here – us, Monmouth, Kewanee, Macomb, and places like that, and it just makes a lot of sense to station a helicopter out here to meet the demands out here and to decrease that transfer time," said Dr. Sergio Morales, Medical Director of Emergency Services at OSF St. Mary and OSF Holy Family Medical Centers.
“It’s nice knowing that they’re literally here in our backyard whenever we need them. We can just pick up the phone and they’re ready to go in minutes.”
“The west central repositioning will allow OSF HealthCare to provide a more timely response to patients as approximately 80% of all patients transported by our Peoria based helicopter to our sister hospitals, OSF Saint Francis Medical Center and Children's Hospital of Illinois, are transferred from the west central region of our service area, which includes Galesburg, Monmouth, Kewanee, and the Quad Cities,” explained Kathy Devine, Vice President of OSF Aviation.
OSF Life Flight supports the Mission of the Sisters of The Third Order of St. Francis by providing state-of-the-art compassionate care in the safest manner possible, while being mindful of the financial impact to patients by providing cost effective helicopter transport services.