Atlantic Ambulance Corporation, a subsidiary of Atlantic Health, the parent company of Morristown Memorial Hospital and Overlook Hospital, is marking half a decade of service with Atlantic Air One, its medevac helicopter based in northern New Jersey, while seeking to duplicate that success with a new, twin helicopter, Atlantic Air Two, in the southern region of state.

Atlantic Air One, the teal-colored medevac helicopter that has become a fixture in the skies of New Jersey, this month marks its fifth year of service. Since its launch in 2006, Air One has made nearly 400 flights each year, transporting patients from accident and other emergency scenes as well as to and from Morristown Memorial Hospital, named a Level I Regional Trauma Center by the American College of Surgeons and a Level II by the state of New Jersey, and othermedical facilities.

As Air One celebrates this milestone, Atlantic Ambulance has begun to bring the success of  its medevac program to patients in southern New Jersey through Atlantic Air Two, part of a new partnership with Cooper University Hospital. Atlantic Air One, based at a hangar in Netcong, is staffed by nurses and paramedics from Atlantic Ambulance, and piloted by PHI Inc., which owns and maintains the helicopter. The helicopter is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment such as GPS, radar, an aircraft collision avoidance system and four different communications radios, including satellite. In 2007, on its first anniversary, the crew of Air One became the first in New Jersey to be trained to use night-vision goggles,  a special enhancement that allows the pilots and crew to more safely fly at night.

“Air One has  truly  exceeded expectations and has been established as a high-quality program that has elevated the standard in New Jersey of providing safe, fast and efficient transportation of patients to the care they need,” said Richard Donovan, director of Atlantic Ambulance.

In December 2010, Atlantic Ambulance launched Atlantic Air Two, which began providing medevac service to the southern-New Jersey regions of Cumberland, Burlington, Ocean, Atlantic, Gloucester, Salem, Cape May counties. Atlantic Air Two, is based at the Millville Municipal Airport in Millville, NJ, in Cumberland County, and flies patients from emergency scenes to Cooper as well as to and from other medical facilities.

Air Two includes all of the features of Air One, including the Atlantic Ambulance/PHI crew. Both Air One and Air Two are EC-135 Eurocopters, a model of helicopter which is quieter than most others, thanks to a fan enclosed in the tail fin, and Air Two will fulfill a need for medevac coverage for the southern region of the state, which in addition to the State Police SouthStar helicopter, has historically relied also on medevac helicopters from medical facilities in neighboring Pennsylvania, which often return to hospitals in that state. In its first month of service, Air Two made more than 50 emergency and inter-facility flights, a brisk start that underscored this need for medevac service in the region.

“By providing the services of Atlantic Health Air Two to Cooper University Hospital, response and transport times will be greatly reduced, which will save lives and result in better medical outcomes for patients, in addition to keeping New Jersey patients closer to home,” Donovan said.

As part of the agreement, Atlantic Ambulance will train Cooper nurses and paramedics to staff Atlantic Air Two, and Cooper will have access to the resources of Atlantic Ambulance’s Patient Transfer Center, which coordinates both the ground and air transportation of patients. Through this partnership, Atlantic Ambulance will help Cooper ultimately develop a transfer center of its own, emulating the model created by Atlantic Ambulance.

“Given Atlantic Ambulance’s long history of success in transporting patients, both by ground as well for the last five years in the air, highlighted by the expertise of our nurses and paramedics who have served patients en route to our trauma center and other facilities, there is a wealth of expertise that we will be sharing with Cooper that will have a positive impact on patients in southern New Jersey,” Donovan said.

For more information about Atlantic Ambulance Corporation, visit http://atlanticambulance.org/.

About Atlantic Health
Atlantic Health (atlantichealth.org) is one of the largest non-profit health care systems in New Jersey and includes Overlook Hospital in Summit and Morristown Memorial Hospital. The two hospitals have a combined total of 1,162 licensed beds and 2,500 affiliated physicians providing a wide array of health care services to the residents of Northern and Central New Jersey. Specialty services include cardiovascular care, neurosciences, pediatrics, cancer care; orthopedics, diabetes care, gastroenterology, trauma and emergency medicine, behavioral health, minimally invasive surgery radiology and advanced diagnostics, women’s health and maternal fetal medicine, home and hospice care and rehabilitation services. Atlantic Health is a Major Clinical Research Affiliate with The Cancer Institute of New Jersey. Atlantic Health’s hospitals are accredited by The Joint Commission. Atlantic Health is the primary academic and clinical affiliate in New Jersey of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and The Mount Sinai Hospital.

Atlantic Health has been chosen for the past three consecutive years by FORTUNE® as one of the magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For®.” Atlantic Health has also been recognized four times by AARP as one of the organization’s Best Employers for Workers over 50. Atlantic Health was recently named among the top 250 innovative business technology organizations throughout the country by InformationWeek magazine, in its annual InformationWeek 500 ranking, and one of Health Care’s Most Wired organizations of 2010 by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine, the journal of the American Hospital Association.