CareFlight Medical Services (CMS) is a division of the CareFlight Group, the largest air medical retrieval operation in Australia performing more than 3000 emergency retrievals a year throughout Queensland, Asia and the Pacific Rim.
CMS specialises in the recruitment, training and provision of critical care doctors and medical support staff for emergency medical work in both the public and private sectors. Focusing heavily on retrieval medicine, CMS is one of a select few operations in the world that operates under a fully integrated air medical model. All CMS doctors, paramedics and registered nurses are trained in the air medical environment and operate under the supervision of experienced senior consultants throughout their employment with CMS.
Employing more than 75 rostered doctors specialising in Emergency Medicine, Intensive Care and Anaesthetics, CMS is also a fully accredited medical training facility with the three Australian critical care colleges. Under the supervision of highly experienced critical care specialists, CMS employs and trains 32 registrars each year in Queensland.
CMS holds the largest public health contract in the Southern Hemisphere, providing specialist doctors and medical support staff for air medical retrieval service providers state-wide on behalf of Queensland Health . CMS has operations in Brisbane, Gold Coast, Cairns, Townsville and Mackay. The contract covers a distance of more than 1.73 million square kilometres (almost 670,000 square miles).
CMS also supplies medical teams to its international jet fleet for air medical retrieval operations to Asia and the Pacific Rim, through the CareFlight Air Ambulance service. With crew and aircraft located at the Gold Coast Airport 24/7, customs clearance is immediate and a response time of less than 90-minutes is achievable for most destinations within the outer Pacific Rim.
Established in 2003, CareFlight Medical Services is a not-for-profit organisation governed by a voluntary Board of Directors. CMS is quality assured under the ISO 900-2001 international standard and an accredited training facility for the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists and the Joint Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine.
Through CareFlight Safety Services, Australia’s only air medical safety training organisation, all CMS medical staff receive comprehensive training on commencement and extensive ongoing training throughout their employment with CMS. The CMS Senior Medical Management is made up of highly qualified and experienced Medical Consultants who provide ongoing structured training support and mentoring to Retrieval Physicians.
In its charitable capacity, CMS provides free-of-charge, medical personnel, equipment and resources to communities in need throughout Queensland. CMS already provides four full-time doctors free-of-charge to the Gold Coast based CareFlight Rescue (supporting Queensland Health) and has plans to increase community support as it expands in capacity.
CMS senior medical consultants also provide 24/7 clinical and retrieval advice to the Government’s Queensland Emergency Medical Services Clinical Coordination Centre. The Centre co-ordinates all air medical rescues in the Southern Queensland Zone where Clinical Coordinators provide medical advice and assessment of patients in need or potentially in need of air medical evacuation.