Two Golden Hour Customers Collaborate

PennSTAR & T3 Team Up to Save More Lives.

Philadelphia, PA, March 2007 - Temple Health System Transport Team (T3) started providing ground transportation in December of 2002.  The number of transports consistently grew and in 2005, the team extended service to Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Maryland.  The heavy volume of critical transports forced T3 to rely on outside air medical providers.  T3 already uses Golden Hour for ground charting and became a Golden Hour customer in 2003.

When we created T3 we didn't for see the large number of outlying hospitals that would use our service," says Dr. Gerald Wydro, T3 Program Director.  "While this is a good thing, it was clear that we needed to explore the idea of adding air service to our team."

PennSTAR transported their first patient in the summer of 1988.  The program started when the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania recognized the need for safe and efficient critical care transport of patients to the medical center.  PennSTAR also uses Golden Hour for air charting and has been a customer since the summer of 2006.

PennSTAR 6 was born in March of 2007, a collaboration of the Temple University Health System and the PennSTAR Flight Program.  This unique partnership combines the expertise of the PennSTAR Flight Program (PennSTAR provides the aircraft and pilots) and the clinical staff (nurses and medics) of the Temple Health System Transport Team.  The fully equipped EC-135 medical transport helicopter is based in Blue Bell, Montgomery County at Wings Airfield.  PennSTAR 6 services within a 100 mile radius of Temple University Health System.  

T3 Program Director Dr. Gerlad Wydro and PennSTAR Program Director Bob Higgins, go way back.  They worked together in their ambulance days and with the birth of PennSTAR 6 are again working together in the air medical days. 

Another plus with this collaboration is the fact that Golden Hour’s Financial Liaison, Joanne Shuttleworth, who once used Golden Hour at T3, now works at PennSTAR.  The relationship and history she has with T3 provides an excellent form of communication when it comes to the billing of PennSTAR 6.