Clinical Excellence

Emergency medical transport.
Always at the ready.

Clinical Excellence

Emergency medical transport.
Always at the ready.

Ready When It Matters

Life Flight Network’s clinicians are the most skilled and experienced in the industry. Whether in the air or on the ground, ICU-level care in transport requires a highly diverse and skilled team of professionals with field-proven expertise and unwavering compassion and resolve. Our flight nurses, paramedics, and respiratory therapists hold advanced board certifications demonstrating their commitment to clinical excellence and professionalism.

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Patients Transported Per Month
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Neonatal/Pediatric Patients Transported Per Year
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Units of Blood Administered Annually

Life Flight Network clinicians recognize that no two patients are the same, each requiring an individualized approach to care and intervention. Patients experiencing time-sensitive illnesses or injuries need to be moved quickly, and our distinct approach to rapid assessment, intervention, and transport has proven to save lives and improve outcomes. Because of their experience, tools, and in-depth training, our teams are ready to provide lifesaving care anytime, anywhere.

We are committed to the foremost levels of care, compassion, and empathy for the most critically ill patients. We partner closely with specialty care hospitals across our service area, maintaining communication with physicians and providers throughout the transport of each patient. Our unparalleled network of rotor-wing and fixed-wing aircraft and ground ambulances staffed with award-winning clinicians bring the ICU to you. Time and again, patients in rural communities survive potentially lethal conditions because of access to Life Flight Network.

ICU-Level Care. Everywhere.

With the most advanced fleet of civilian aircraft and transport medical equipment and robust, evidence-based patient care guidelines, clinicians at Life Flight Network deploy expert, ICU-level care to patients across our service area. Whether by aircraft or ground ambulance, we are committed to the utmost levels of care, compassion, and empathy for all patients.

Life Flight Network is dedicated to taking real, consistent action to address the challenges of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within our organization and in our communities. This includes working to eradicate the deep disparities present in healthcare. Systems of inequity and bias have endured and have contributed to poorer outcomes for historically marginalized patient populations across the United States. This is particularly evident in underrepresented and rural communities. We must address the root causes of these divergent outcomes. As an organization serving a diverse patient population, we have a duty to act.

Flight crew and an EMS agent load a patient into a waiting helicopter
Two flight nurses hold an IV bag of plasma in the air, while another holds a bag of blood. They tend to a patient during a flight
Icons/testimonial-quote
The crew was professional and courteous. They were very communicative when relaying information in regard to patient outcomes.

EMS Testimonial 02

Expert Clinicians
Working Together

ICU-level care in transport requires a highly diverse and skilled team of professionals with deep levels of expertise and unwavering compassion and resolve. The required skills and experience for our different clinical roles are detailed below.

Roles & Qualifications

Flight Nurse

Flight Paramedic

Ground Paramedic

Ground EMT

Medical Transport Driver

Clinical Education

Working closely with our medical directors, the clinical education team provides initial and ongoing training in all advanced skills such as endotracheal and supraglottic airway placement, needle thoracostomy, finger thoracostomy, chest tube placement, and surgical and needle cricothyrotomy. Additionally, each team is equipped with critical, life-saving blood resources—whole blood, packed red blood cells, and/or liquid plasma.

Clinical Education

Advanced Skills Assessment and Patient Simulation

Life Flight Network requires and provides biannual specialized training to keep our clinicians operating at peak performance. Our medical director, associate medical directors, and team of accomplished clinical educators work in tandem with our caregivers to teach and hone skills, ensuring our clinicians maintain mastery in these lifesaving practices. The clinical education team provides dynamic, interactive simulation and training, which support clinical needs derived from quality assurance and quality management patient transport data.

Clinical Education

Cadaver Labs

Cadaver labs leverage extensive clinical experience, aptitude, and real-life patient care scenarios to bridge the gap between skill proficiency and application. The ability of our clinicians to practice these lifesaving skills on cadavers has proven intensely valuable and continues to elevate our collective knowledge surrounding patient care.

Training & Education

Supporting Our Partners Through Training and Continuing Education
Practice makes perfect. And while perfection may be unrealistic, collaborative learning and sharing make us all stronger.
Member of rescue team stands atop snowing mountain holding a smoking flare indicating landing zone
Signaling the landing zone location
Landing zone training with Schweitzer Ski Patrol
Icons/testimonial-quote
I have been in EMS for 17 years, Life Flight Network is by far the best I’ve ever worked with. Crews have it together and fit “hand-in-glove” with the ground crews. Keep up the good work!

EMS Testimonial 01

Speciality Teams

Neonatal Pediatric team load an infant in an incubator into a waiting helicopter
Close up of young girl patient with probes for vitals sucks her thumb as a nurse comforts her.

Neonatal and Pediatric Care

Life Flight Network provides the region’s highest trained Neonatal/Pediatric Specialty Teams immediately available at strategic airports, providing an essential lifeline for hundreds of infants and children requiring specialty clinical services each year.

The Neonatal/Pediatric Transport Teams consist of dedicated and highly specialized flight registered nurses and flight respiratory therapists with an impressive average 21 years’ experience in neonatal and pediatric care. These teams move patients by the most appropriate means of transport—state-of-the-art rotor-wing and fixed-wing aircraft, or ground ambulances.

Care provided to sick or premature infants during the first hours of life has a profound impact on their lifelong health, and with neonatal and pediatric care access limited in many rural areas, the value of our lifesaving neonatal and pediatric services cannot be understated.

Life Flight Network also partners with regional neonatal specialty care hospitals to transport their teams when appropriate. This collaborative approach to specialized neonatal care and transport means services are readily available throughout our region.

Two flight nurses hold an IV bag of plasma in the air, while another holds a bag of blood. They tend to a patient during a flight

Extracorporeal Membrane
Oxygenation (ECMO)

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a treatment that employs a pump to circulate blood through an artificial lung back into the bloodstream. Life Flight Network partners with multiple facilities to provide ECMO transportation for critically ill patients. If pre-ECMO transport is appropriate, all Life Flight Network bases are ready and able to transport, including patients who are prone. Our team will communicate with receiving ECMO teams to provide rapid patient intervention. When cannulation at the sending facility is determined to be in the patient’s best interest, we work with the receiving teams to bring ECMO to the patient.

Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump (IABP)

Life Flight Network has teams trained on the most advanced intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) systems and stand ready to care for patients suffering from heart complications. An IABP machine is a mechanical device that helps the heart pump blood. Utilizing a catheter with a balloon on one end, the device has a mechanism that inflates and deflates the balloon in rhythm to assist the heart in pumping blood to the rest of the body. An IABP can be a critical resource when treating heart attack patients and a vital bridge during heart transplant services.
Associations, Accreditations, and Awards
Striving for excellence in everything we do.
NAAMTA Accreditation Logo
IS-BAO Accreditation Logo
Helicopter Association International accreditation logo
CAMTS accreditation logo
A flight nurse and two EMS technicians wheel patient to waiting helicopter with crew waiting to receive
Service

Rotor-Wing Air Medical Transport

All of our rotor-wing aircraft are equipped with state-of-the-art technology to provide patients with ICU-level care throughout their transport.

A crew of EMS and flight nurses prepare to lift patient on gurney into a fixed-wing propeller airplane
Service

Fixed-Wing Air Medical Transport

Our full fleet of fixed-wind aircraft offers longer-distance critical care transport, even from short runways, allowing our care teams access to rural communities.

Three people load neonatal transportation chamber into the back of a ground ambulance
Service

Ground Medical Transport

Our ground ambulance fleet offers ICU-level care from bases across our service area. Non-emergent transport care is available throughout the Portland metro area.

Emergency
Dispatch

EMS and Hospital Personnel:
For immediate emergency dispatch, call us 24/7. We’re standing by.

(800) 232-0911

There.
When You Need Us.
Life Flight Network