Members of the Unity Medical Center administrative staff and representatives from TriStar Centennial were given a presentation on Nov. 19 about a medical transport service that can be implemented through Unity’s affiliation with TriStar.

Director of TriStar Mobile Medicine Rod Dawson introduced those in attendance to SkyLife Air and SkyLife Mobile which will now be available for Unity to transfer patients from Coffee County to TriStar Centennial Medical Center in Nashville.

 “There’s nothing binding here. There’s no contract, nothing of that nature,” said Dawson after the presentation. “We’re just here to be a partner, so if they want to use us, it’s one more tool in the toolbox in this region, specifically for this hospital. We know that there’s an issue everywhere with medical transport and we want to be one more tool.”

SkyLife Air features a specialty care medical transport helicopter that is larger than typical helicopters used for medical transport to give care providers more room to provide necessary medical services to patients and to store medical equipment.

SkyLife Mobile is an ambulance service that offers a larger in size ambulance that, like the helicopter, gives care providers more room to work.

There are four ambulances in the SkyLife fleet. The southern station location for the ambulance available to Unity will be at StoneCrest Medical Center in Smyrna.

The services will provide quicker transport for patients at Unity’s emergency room that need to be transferred to other facilities than the county ambulance service can provide due to staffing issues says Keri Wood, the Marketing/Provider Liaison for Unity Medical Center.

“It’s just another opportunity, another group, that we can reach out to in those times of need so we can get the patient to where they need to be in a good amount of time that way they can be taken care of to our fullest extent,” she says. “Our biggest goal is to always provide the highest quality inpatient care, so this is just another route that we’re able to help provide that.”