PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — With many Aroostook County communities struggling to provide ambulance services due to changes in service, Northern Maine Community College and LifeFlight of Maine have partnered with local hospitals to ensure that people do not go without transportation to critical care hospitals in southern areas of Maine.
NMCC, LifeFlight, Cary Medical Center and Northern Light Health have established a new Critical Care Transport Academy at the NMCC campus that has begun training nurses and emergency medical technicians with the same curriculum that LifeFlight provides to its crew members.
The Academy trains students to utilize the latest critical care transport equipment and medical techniques in order to stabilize patients during transfer to downstate hospitals. Such patients often have suffered life-threatening injuries due to vehicle crashes or endured an unexpected medical emergency that requires specialized care.
Although LifeFlight has served Aroostook County and the rest of Maine with critical care transport and related training since its inception in 1998, local medical and educational leaders have seen an increased need to form regional teams of CCT-trained professionals to be based in Aroostook County.
Beth Collamore, emergency medicine physician at Cary Medical Center, noted during a community briefing event for the CCT Academy on Thursday, Jan. 16, that having such teams available 24/7 locally has become a crucial need for local communities, many of which have struggled amidst changes in local EMS services.
With The County’s status as the largest and most geographically isolated region of Maine, patients experience long rides to southern Maine hospitals, especially during the winter months.
“In July you can get to Bangor in probably two hours, but December through April you’re looking at a longer period on the road,” Collamore said. “We need people here who are trained to give patients the same level of care they’d experience in a hospital while in a more limited situation.”
NMCC president Tim Crowley said that 20 students, nurses and EMTs from Cary, A.R. Gould and Northern Maine Medical Center, are enrolled in the initial training, which combines lectures with practice in NMCC’s medical simulation center.
The college and medical partners will soon establish dates for the next stages of the training and plan to continue offering the CCT Academy to fill the need for locally trained individuals.
CCT Academy is held at no cost for the employers and students due to funding from the LifeFlight Foundation, the Maine Community College System’s Maine Quality Centers and the Lunder Foundation. Peter Goth, coordinator of emergency services for A.R. Gould and longtime LifeFlight instructor, has served as the CCT Academy instructor.
“Houlton Regional Hospital has also expressed interest in sending employees,” Crowley said. “The need for this training is ongoing and we’re going to continue to provide our area with the best skilled people for critical care transport.”
Chuck Hogan, registered nurse and chief clinical officer for LifeFlight, noted that each component of the CCT Academy will build upon one another to ensure that CCT professionals receive regularly updated training.
“We see this as the first step in what is probably going to be a marathon,” Hogan said. “We’re exposing these students to the best CCT practices that will allow them to positively change their own communities.”