By Vanessa Orr

More than 20 years ago, KIDZ Medical Services’ co-founders Albert R. Taño, M.D., and Jorge E. Perez, M.D., launched an air medical transport service to fly international neonatal patients — many of them preemies needing special treatment in the U.S. — safely and with a highly-trained care team. Now known as AIRZ (Air Medical Charters, LLC), KIDZ’ air medical service has expanded into medical tourism, providing both children and adults access to expert physicians and high-quality healthcare services not readily accessible in their home countries.

AIRZ is a physician-owned and operated company specializing in adult, pediatric, and neonatal transport. The crew ensures the safe and efficient transfer of patients to specialized healthcare facilities across the U.S., Caribbean, Central, and South America.

Providing neonatal care in the air or on the ground requires a very specific set of equipment and healthcare staff training requirements. AIRZ’ pediatric transports are taken to South Florida hospitals, like Baptist, South Miami, and Nicklaus Children’s, and hundreds of patients have been transported safely since its inception.

“We started with a helicopter and now use a Lear 55 Jet,” said Jorge Jordan, APRN, who leads the coordination of the medical team. But what makes their air medical service unique is the deep clinical expertise of the team, in addition to an experienced flight crew with the highest safety ratings.

“Our crew is divided into several areas, depending on the specialty they have,” said Jordan. “We have EMT paramedics who also work for the city of Miami or Miami-Dade County who are trained in trauma. We have ICU respiratory therapists who know how to intubate or put patients on ventilators. We have nurses who are trained in caring for both adults and neonates; depending on the patient we are transporting, we pick from that group of team members for both air and ground transport.”

All air transport staff have years of experience in the ICU and have received specific air transport training.

“When you’re 50,000 ft. alone up there, you have to be able to make split decisions on patient care,” said Jordan, adding that patients have ranged from premature babies to pregnant mothers to post-surgical patients that cant’s be transported home on commercial flights because of medical needs.

Whether transported by air or ground, KIDZ makes sure that patients come first.

“We believe that patients are part of our family; we take care of them the same way we’d take care of our own parents, kids or grandkids,” said Jordan. “We also believe in communication; when we’re transporting a neonate, we talk to the parents constantly. We send them pictures from the air ambulance, when we land, when we get in the ground ambulance, and when we arrive at the hospital. We make them part of the transport.”

Medical Tourism

According to CEO Wayne Brackin, there are a number of initiatives underway to make AIRZ’ air transport services even more accessible.

“We currently have an active partnership with Nicklaus Children’s Hospital to provide fixed-wing transportation, and we are in discussions with one of the major cruise line providers to be its preferred air medical transport,” he explained.

As a board member of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, Brackin is also working closely with the organization to assist in the evolving medical tourism business.

“Medical tourism is already substantial in South Florida; people come to Miami from South America, the Caribbean, and Central America in particular to access internationally known ‘destination’ physicians and the specialty technology available here,” he explained.

“Depending on their country of origin, there are different levels of capability when it comes to healthcare,” he added. “When they are looking for information about physicians with the best outcomes or the newest technology available for certain disease processes, they find it at South Florida healthcare institutions.”

He notes that some government entities in island countries in Central and South America also contract with U.S.-based providers for care not available in their home countries.

“While we have the special expertise required to transport pediatric patients and neonates, we are unique among air transport companies in that we can take care of transporting patients of any age,” he added.