Medic 1 Air Takes Flight

Medic 1 Air faced a classic challenge—a new startup of air medical transport services trying to break into a crowded, competitive field.

"That was one of my key learning experiences," said Larry Burton, president and CEO of Medic 1 Air, a provider of air medical transport services covering 12 regional hospitals throughout a 70-mile radius of Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri. "One of the things that struck me about the air medical transport business is the competiveness of the industry."

Burton took it all in stride because he always approached EMS and healthcare from a patient perspective and made decisions based on the best interest of patient care.

"I think you can do that very well from a safety and quality perspective, and if you do, then the financial success will follow," he said.

Burton has been in the healthcare sector for over 27 years. He started out working at a community hospital in Mississippi County, Arkansas, right out of high school as a groundskeeper. From there he was introduced to EMS, and became an EMT with the hospital's EMS-based service. He worked his way up the ranks and became a paramedic and later a paramedic supervisor. Eventually he got involved in administration and became an administrative support director for support services and later became COO of the same hospital where he used to mow the lawn.

In 2004, the hospital divested its ambulance service to the owners of Medic One in Jonesboro. In 2007, the ownership group approached Burton about the opportunity to join their team and help them launch their new air medical business, Medic 1 Air. Medic One had been operating for seven years in six counties, while averaging about 22,000 ground trips annually and found a demand for another aircraft in the marketplace. Burton felt that it was a great opportunity and accepted their offer.

The two units—the ground and air teams—owned and operated by Medic One’s Network of Emergency Services now work smoothly as a cohesive system.

"We really have become one," said Burton. "Starting out, we weren't sure how to approach that from a strategic perspective, but we quickly came to the realization that we have to operate as one to be effective."

In his new role, Burton realizes the importance of having an effective outreach and marketing plan.

"Providers who do utilize and call us for our services are looking for certainty," he said. "Because we are a new provider, it's hard to provide certainty until we get an opportunity to serve and provide a service. That is a challenge to some of the agencies using our service. They don't know who we are yet because we are new to the industry. In order to attain some market share, we have to be aggressive, make contact with those whom we serve, and find information. We have to find out what we need to do to be given the opportunity to serve them."

Burton was introduced to ThinkThroughTools earlier this year through OMNIFLIGHT which provides Medic 1 Air with its single aircraft and pilots.

"During the development stage of the business, I was introduced to Bill Pike who had contracted with Rich Obertots and ThinkThroughTools previously with their outreach initiatives and enjoyed success," said Burton. "He recommended that we contact Rich and discuss some possible ways he can help Medic 1 Air as well."

Medic 1 Air plans to focus on its outreach/business development by using ThinkThroughTools' TargetingMatrix Outreach Module. Burton says that the training and software will help his team immensely.

"I think it's going to be a tremendous help to the business as we continue to grow," said Burton. "We have an aggressive outreach and marketing plan and the outreach software will provide us with the necessary tools to document what we find. We're out there accessing our customers and finding out information that's going to be helpful to us to make future decisions. We see it as an invaluable tool to use within our business plan."

Several of the staff from all areas recently completed "OutreachU Basics" with ThinkThroughTools at Medic One’s Jonesboro headquarters. Obertots commented that he was really enthused that Burton included three communication specialists as part of the training."Communication specialists are usually the first point of contact for individuals making transport requests. They also are the center for managing the transport process and often accomplish customer follow up, ‘Outreach QA.’ Unfortunately many programs do not understand how valuable these professionals are in the Outreach equation. Larry clearly understands."

"Communication specialists are an extremely important part of the overall entire flight team," added Burton. "Not only do they have to be professional and technically proficient, they have to posses the necessary customer service skills. If they don't understand what we are doing and how we are going about accessing our customers, we feel like we're not doing everything that we need to do from a team perspective. They are the frontline to our business. They take almost every call that comes through. They collect data and need to understand and have access to the system as well."

As he looks ahead to the future of Medic 1 Air, Burton says that they are stressing the importance of being the safest and fastest service in the industry and building a team that understands response times are critical within the air medical industry.

"We emphasize heavily that we will give you a guarantee ETA and also guarantee that we will dispatch the closest and most appropriate aircraft regardless of who owns and operates the aircraft," he says. "That may go against some of the entrepreneurs in the business who want to capture every flight. But capturing every flight doesn't always translate to what is best for the patient. That’s what we are all about – doing the right thing for the patient. Those are the principles by which we operate. We're proud of that and proud to be part of this industry. We want to represent this industry at the highest level and that's what we are going to do."

In all of his interactions with Burton, Obertots finds that he always credits his staff for the past and present successes that have earned the Medic One and Medic1Air its strong market position.

"I have noted that he is constantly looking for ways to provide his team with the resources they require to optimize their system now that they have integrated the air medical capability with an already solid and competent ground program," Obertots said.

While with Burton and his team in Jonesboro, Obertots was impressed with each person who participated in the OutreachU Basics training course:

• Conrad Zitzelberger, Flight Paramedic, Base Manager
• Shelly James, Flight Paramedic
• Paul Wilhoite, Flight Nurse
• Paul Hedge, Flight Paramedic
• Chris Jordan, Flight Nurse
• Amber Lies, Communication Specialist
• Chris Ingle, Communication Specialist
• Jennifer Allison, Communication Specialist
• Justin Yates, Director Business Development-Sales
• Tysha Starnes, Flight Nurse
• Shawn Perrin, Director of Education
• Carlos Martinnez, Pilot
• Larry Burton, CEO
• Brittni Wright, Director of Marketing-Community Relations

"I sensed that each was truly devoted to their specific role, their patients, each other, their Immediate Customers, and each seemed profoundly dedicated to the demands and disciplines required to operate a high-performance critical care program," said Obertots. "It was a true honor to be among them and I am confident with their willpower, abilities, sense of team, and with the use of the TargetingMatrix Outreach Module software to help them create certainty, collaborate and manage their outreach—they will soar to be among the most effective emergent care delivery systems in the USA."