SouthStar Aeromedical Helicopter
SouthStar Aeromedical Helicopter on Facebook
Since the inception of the state’s air medical helicopter program 28 years ago, the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) has designated Virtua to provide the medical crew – flight paramedics and flight nurses – for SouthSTAR in partnership with Cooper University Hospital as the trauma center to serve the southern region of the state. Since that time, we have successfully reapplied to the NJDOH every three years to be designated the medical provider for SouthSTAR and to.......Continue Reading
receive grant dollars to help support the program.
Beginning around 2006, the NJDOH began issuing licenses to air medical helicopters in addition to SouthSTAR and NorthSTAR (which serves the state’s northern region). There are now six programs in addition to SouthSTAR serving the region south of Trenton.
Due to the increasing number of air medical providers serving South Jersey, over the past 10 years, SouthSTAR flights have fallen from an average of 75 per month in 2006 to an average of just 20 per month in 2015, and 14 per month during the first quarter of 2016. This decline is punctuated with an all-time low monthly volume of seven patient flights in February 2016 when only seven of our 20 critical care flight crew (just 35% of our staff) had any patient contact over the entire month.
Therefore, after careful analysis and review, Virtua determined that the significant decline in SouthSTAR’s flight volume makes the program no longer sustainable. We reached the difficult, but we believe appropriate and necessary, decision that we would not submit a proposal in response to the NJDOH JEMSTAR Request for Proposals for the three years starting July 1, 2016. As a result, Virtua’s medical management of the SouthSTAR program will end effective June 30, 2016.
Virtua remains steadfastly committed to our emergency medical services system and to the communities that the Virtua EMS system serves every day. Last fall, NJDOH recognized Virtua as the “2015 Outstanding Private EMS Agency of the Year.” We will continue to be a leader in the delivery of out-of-hospital emergency medical services now and for many years to come.
