The Peggy V. Helmerich Women’s Health Center at Hillcrest Medical Center, in partnership with Tulsa Life Flight, is launching Oklahoma’s only dedicated high-risk obstetrics air transport service.
Beginning Monday, June 3, the Hillcrest Healthy Beginnings Transport Team will pick up expectant mothers who are nearing labor and need advanced medical care for either themselves or their baby. The team will transport women from Eastern Oklahoma, and across the region including southern Kansas, western Arkansas and western Missouri, to the Helmerich Women’s Health Center on the Hillcrest Medical Center campus.
For women facing high-risk pregnancies, the transport team allows them access to the Helmerich Women’s Health Center’s state-of-the-art obstetric technology, as well as a team of physicians and nurses specialized in high-risk deliveries. And, for premature and sick babies, the service allows baby to travel to the Helmerich Women’s Health Center’s advanced neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in the safest and most comfortable environment – inside their mother.
“For high-risk obstetrics (OB) patients or babies expected to arrive either premature or sick, the Hillcrest Healthy Beginnings Transport Team offers quick and safe transport from their home community to our facility under the supervision of a flight nurse and a high-risk OB nurse,” said Natalie Smith, Service Line Administrator of the Helmerich Women’s Health Center. “The service allows both the expectant mother and her baby to arrive at the hospital prior to delivery, ensuring access to advanced technology and specialized staff as soon as possible.”
Upon arrival at the Helmerich Women’s Health Center, the expectant mother will either be stabilized in the Center’s Level III ante-partum unit, designed to provide specialized care for high-risk OB patients prior to childbirth, or will give birth in the Level III Labor & Delivery Unit. Newborns are delivered just steps from the Center’s Level III NICU, a state-of-the-art 42-bed unit staffed with Board Certified Neonatologists, nurses, respiratory and physical therapists, case workers, dietitians, educators and lactation consultants dedicated to the unique and comprehensive health care needs of their patients and families.
The Hillcrest Healthy Beginnings Transport Team includes a high-risk OB flight nurse from the Helmerich Women’s Center at Hillcrest and aircrafts, pilots and flight nurses from Tulsa Life Flight (TLF). TLF, owned and operated by the Air Methods Corporation, has safely completed over 45,000 emergency medical transports in its 33-year history and has been accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems (CAMTS) since 1996, making it one of the nation’s safest and most utilized air medical transport services.
The Hillcrest Healthy Beginnings Transport Team is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. To contact the transport team, please call (855) 551-CALL.