NCMC adding med evac copter, changing name of service

GREELEY — North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley will add a second medical transport helicopter to serve the Northern Colorado, southeastern Wyoming and western Nebraska region, and change the name of its service on Feb. 1.

NCMC has operated Airlife of Greeley for 25 years. The need for a new name became apparent with this announcement following by one day the news that AirLife of Denver would be adding a third helicopter, based in Firestone, in February to serve the Northern Colorado and southern Wyoming region.

On Thursday, Gene Haffner, NCMC spokesman, said that his hospital’s air ambulance service is separate and not connected to AirLife of Denver.

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The Greeley service will be renamed North Colorado Med Evac to reflect a new partnership with Med-Trans Corp. headquartered in Dallas. The partnership will provide two new Bell 407 aircraft identified with the same red-white-and-blue color scheme already in use.

Haffner said the main reason for changing the name of the service was because North Colorado Med Evac “more appropriately reflected the service area we’ve come to serve.”

He added that NCMC’s decision to add a second helicopter has been in the making for some time. “We have been analyzing this for the better part of a year and we made this decision several months ago,” he said. “This is not a reaction to (Airlife of Denver’s) announcement.”

As Gene O’Hara, NCMC’s CEO, said, “We have been reviewing the regional population growth and air transport needs of the region for some time. We are pleased that this partnership will enable us to meet the growing regional transport needs with the same service, clinical quality and medical professionals that our community partners and residents have received for the past 25 years.”

Haffner said the two helicopter services would be in competition but not in the traditional sense. “It really comes down to what’s in the best interest of the patient and their particular transport need,” he said. The bottom line for Northern Colorado residents is that there will be two additional helicopters serving the region, he noted.

Med-Trans Corp. is a leading provider of air ambulance programs operating in Colorado, Texas, Arizona, California, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina and North and South Dakota.

“North Colorado Medical Center has done an extraordinary job of building hospital relationships and servicing EMS systems and communities in the region,´ said Fred Buttrell, president and CEO of Med-Trans. “It is an honor working with such a professional organization and we are very excited about the future of the North Colorado Med Evac program.”