Floyd Medical Center board approves $4 million for construction of a raised helipad on the hospital’s campus.
The Floyd Healthcare Management board approved $4 million for an air ambulance helipad to be constructed on the Floyd Medical Center campus.
The on-campus helipad will provide faster time to definitive treatment, improving patient outcomes, Dr. Clarence Mckemie, Floyd’s Trauma Medical Director said.
The hospital currently uses a helipad just over a mile and a half away on Riverside Parkway. The raised helipad’s location will be at the North Second Avenue near the hospital’s emergency room.
“We know that, in the past, many trauma patients have been sent out of our region, bypassing Floyd for other trauma centers. This is, in part, due to the need to transport patients by ambulance from the helipad to the ECC,” said Dr. Ken Jones FMC executive vice president and chief medical officer. “The on-campus helipad will allow us to take patients straight from the helicopter to our trauma bay.”
That raised helipad will have a direct elevator access to the emergency room’s trauma bays and allow ambulances to pass and park beneath for easier access.
“The helipad will give air ambulance patients quick, direct access to the region’s only Level II Trauma Center,” Mckemie said. “Time is important in a trauma situation, and Floyd has committed the resources to bring the very best in facilities and resources to our community.”
The hospital is the only level II Trauma Center in Region one which covers 16 counties in northwest Georgia.
“The helipad will be used by already-established air ambulances to provide quick access to the region’s highest level of trauma services,” Floyd President and CEO Kurt Stuenkel said during the meeting. “In essence, we are relocating the helipad we currently use from Riverside Parkway to the trauma center.”
The hospital is not seeking to recruit an air ambulance service to be based at FMC, he told the board.
“Our expert trauma consultants strongly recommended that we have an on-campus helipad for our nowheightened capabilities in trauma,” Jones said.