LifeFlight of Maine has launched a significant new initiative to bolster its relationships with hospitals, first responders, emergency medical services (EMS), 911 centers, and other stakeholders that rely on LifeFlight to deliver critical care quickly and reliably for patients facing a life-threatening medical emergency.

This initiative will be led by Kyle Madigan, director of client relations at LifeFlight of Maine, who began in this newly created role in January 2024. Madigan brings decades of experience as a flight nurse and critical care provider, an educator, and an air medical program administrator. Most recently, he led the Dartmouth Hitchcock Advanced Response Team (DHART), LifeFlight of Maine’s peer service based in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

Under Madigan’s leadership, LifeFlight is working to expand its outreach and education efforts across all 16 counties in Maine, as well as parts of New Hampshire along the border with Maine, an area in which LifeFlight of Maine’s Sanford-based team provides service when needed. These efforts include expanding offerings of LifeFlight’s “Ground Safety and User Course,” which trains partner agencies on how to identify when a patient needs a LifeFlight transport, how to make a transport request, how to safely secure a landing zone, and how to transfer the patient into LifeFlight’s care.

Madigan, in concert with LifeFlight of Maine CEO Joe Kellner, is also leading efforts to strengthen operational collaboration between LifeFlight and Maine’s hospitals. The majority of calls to LifeFlight come from a hospital requesting to transfer an acutely ill patient to a facility that offers a higher level of care. This is a critically important service for Maine’s geographically dispersed system of community hospitals. The smooth, reliable, and rapid movement of these patients in a LifeFlight vehicle is critical both to the patient’s outcomes and to the capacity of the emergency medical system statewide to ensure all patients can access the care they need. Madigan will work with leaders and clinicians in
emergency departments and intensive care units to improve coordination and logistics for the care teams interfacing with LifeFlight crews.

Additionally, LifeFlight is working with communities, first responders, and private citizens to establish additional helicopter landing zones in rural areas. LifeFlight maintains a database of thousands of landing zones across Maine and parts of New Hampshire, which LifeFlight crews utilize to respond to medical emergencies. Many of these landing zones are a local ball field or parking lot. Others are a clearing deep in the Maine woods. By working with communities to expand this database, which is available both to LifeFlight and to 911 dispatchers statewide, LifeFlight is creating more critical healthcare access points across Maine.

“At LifeFlight of Maine, we hold ourselves to uncompromising standards of excellence. This is what has inspired this organization for two and a half decades, and what continues to drive us as one of the premier nonprofit air ambulance and critical care services in the country. We are continually looking for ways to elevate the level of care we provide to our patients, and to improve the reliability and speed of the service we offer to every community here in Maine. This new initiative continues our longstanding commitment to excellence,” said Joe Kellner, CEO, LifeFlight of Maine.

“Kyle Madigan’s experience and expertise in the delivery of critical care emergency medicine is formidable. The work he is doing to strengthen collaboration between LifeFlight and our EMS and hospital partners is a tremendous asset both to this organization and to the entire Maine EMS system, fundamentally because this initiative will improve patient care and save lives,” said Bill Cyr, COO, LifeFlight of Maine.

“I have dedicated my career to nonprofit, critical care emergency medicine, because I firmly believe that this is the best delivery model for patients in Maine, northern New England, and beyond. I have worked in collaboration with my colleagues at LifeFlight of Maine for years, and I’m pleased to now have the opportunity to serve alongside them. Maine is fortunate to have an air medical provider as well-regarded as LifeFlight, and I look forward to contributing my skills to this team and to the State of Maine,” said Kyle Madigan, director of client relations, LifeFlight of Maine.

About LifeFlight of Maine

LifeFlight of Maine is a nonprofit and the state’s only air ambulance service. Since 1998, LifeFlight has transported more than 38,000 patients, one life at a time, from every community in Maine. LifeFlight’s mission is to transform the critical care transport medicine system into an integrated, high-quality, patient-centered system worthy of the public’s trust. LifeFlight’s airplane and five helicopters are based in Bangor, Lewiston, and Sanford. Along with dedicated ground ambulances, these vehicles cover the entire state and offshore islands. LifeFlight complements and supports the work of local EMS and hospital personnel in caring for the critically ill or injured. Each LifeFlight base is staffed by a highly qualified team of pilots, flight nurses and flight paramedics, EMT vehicle operators, aviation maintenance technicians, and communications specialists. LifeFlight of Maine is a joint venture partnership of Central Maine Healthcare and Northern Light Health. LifeFlight was fully re-accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems in 2022. More information about LifeFlight of Maine is available at LifeFlightMaine.org.