Erin Kelly / The Meridian StarMike Mims, AirCare paramedic nurse, Nick Schmitt, AirCare Med-Trans pilot, Kyle Stidham, AirCare flight nurse, and Dr. Hans Tulip, Anderson Regional Medical Center's trauma medical director, on the helipad of Anderson Regional Medical Center. Anderson and the University of Mississippi Medical Center's AirCare medical helicopter transport announced they are enhancing their affiliation. 

Anderson Regional Medical Center in Meridian and the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s AirCare medical helicopter transport announced they are enhancing their partnership caring for patients. 

Dr. Damon Darsey, an emergency medicine physician and medical director of UMMC’s Mississippi Center for Emergency Services, said the goal is keeping patients local, when possible. 

“What’s not working is that everyone’s coming to big centers,” he said. “That’s not a sustainable system. COVID or non-COVID, we’ve got to keep people local, and so our job is how do we work with Anderson to keep things here.”

The aircraft can hold nearly everything that doctors would access in the emergency department, he said. 

“Sometimes, if they need something done that requires a hospital, we can do it real quick here on their way, if they already know they need to go to UMC, because some injuries you know even from the field that you need a certain specialist that we might not have here,” said Dr. Hans Tulip, Anderson’s trauma medical director. 

The partnership between the two hospitals began in 2016, but the enhanced relationship expands educational and clinical components from providers at UMMC, according to a news release. 

One initiative helps ensure patients have a seamless transition in the delivery of blood and blood products, the release said. 

“When we pick up a patient and deliver them to Anderson, our crew works with Anderson’s front line to continue a transfusion, rather than starting it over,” Darsey said in a statement. “We focus on what patients need further down the road.”