Air medical services provide crucial care to New Yorkers, especially in the state’s health care deserts. State Assemblymember Carrie Woerner toured LifeNet of New York’s 7-1 base in Selkirk Wednesday.

It was a valuable opportunity to get an inside look at how the facility operates, but it also represented a chance for Woerner to ask questions and gauge where a bipartisan effort to reform EMS services in New York is hitting its marks, and where work still needs to be done.

Woerner got an up-close look at the aircraft that Kyle Daley, clinical base lead for LifeNet of New York, explained is responsible for transporting specialists and patients as they work to slash transport times across the region’s rural terrain where a ground ambulance could simply take too long.

“Greene, Delaware County where it could be 90 minutes to a trauma center, we could get there in 20 to 25 minutes, which is pretty substantial for patient outcomes,” he said.

The facility includes storage for aircraft and supplies as well as living quarters for crew members working lengthy shifts.

Woerner told Spectrum News 1 she was impressed with how smooth the facility runs, and how efficiently they interact with other responders.

“They have pre-thought all of the hand offs between the dispatch, fire department, EMS, ground ambulance, state police.” she said.

Woerner was also taking in a legislative success story. She was part of a bipartisan coalition that pushed for air ambulances to carry blood products back in 2021.

“I know we saved lives, and these folks are able to tell us that story,” she said.

“Rather than giving them the blood 20 or 30 minutes later, you give it to them up front and you buy them time to be able to get to the hospital,” Dr. Warren Hayashi, a doctor at Albany Medical Center and Medical Director for LifeNet of New York, explained to Woerner.

As part of what is known a the “Rescue EMS” package, lawmakers this past session successfully fought to allow ground ambulances to also carry blood products. Hayashi said he expects that will fill additional gaps in service where ground ambulance travel time could be lengthy while not rising to the level of necessitating air transport.

“There’s a certain radius where people could still get blood products before they hit our doors and benefit substantially from it,” he said.

Despite progress last session that also included passing legislation allowing paramedics to be reimbursed by Medicaid for treating patients in place or transporting them to locations other than a hospital, Woerner emphasized that there is still work to do.

“I’m going to just continue as we go into this legislation session to highlight the needs and all of the aspects of our health care system and how we have to really see it as a system,” she said. "Making sure all of the pieces are working together correctly." 

So that people like Kyle Daley can continue playing their crucial role in that system effectively.

“Especially with the vast area that we cover, we’re bringing critical resources to local EMS areas around here in a quicker fashion,” he said.

Items still remaining on the Rescue EMS agenda are an bill recognizing EMS as an "essential service" and creating special taxing disctricts to generate revenue, as well as a push to remove EMS services from property tax cap limits.