DHART History
The Dartmouth-Hitchcock Advanced Response Team began as a dream in 1984. On July 1, 1994 DHART began operations and received our first request seven minutes after going on-line. DHART was designed to serve the Northern New England region of New Hampshire, Vermont, Upstate New York, and Western Maine.
Since DHART's inception, the program has experienced growth both in the number of requests and number of completed flights. DHART began as a three year trial program of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Now, over eight years later, the program is a permanent department of the center.
In 1996, the Vermont Health Care Authority (since replaced by the VT Public Oversight Commission) granted DHART a temporary Certificate Of Need (C.O.N.) with the understanding that a medical review committee be formed to evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness of the DHART Helicopter in Vermont.
The committee, made up of representatives from DHMC and several Vermont hospitals, among them Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, included three emergency physicians, three emergency/trauma nurses and three general surgeons.
The Committee completed it's review (of 107 patient flights from February to November of 1996) and recommended that DHART be allowed to continue operations in Vermont. The Committee continues to meet on a quarterly basis to review patient transports in the State of Vermont.
On December 30th of 1998, DHART put a new helicopter into operation. An American Eurocopter EC135, the aircraft is capable of cruising at 150 miles per hour. It also represents the latest in aviation technology which allows DHART to meet the mission of providing care to the critically ill and injured patients in Northern New England.
The EC135 provides greater lifting capability which is important when operating at high altitude during our hot and humid summer months.
On March 1st, 1999 we moved into DHART's new on site hangar which is located next to the helipad by the Emergency Department at DHMC. It provides for an enclosed and protected space for our primary aircraft and the back up helicopter. The hangar also provides office space for the crew and pilots, and houses the state of the art communications center.
DHART celebrated it's five year anniversary on July 1, 1999 with a ceremony at the new DHART Hangar and Operations Center. It was attended by former patients, dignitaries and media.
The year 2001 brought many improvements to the DHART Program. We replaced our 1999 Visual Flight Rules (VFR) EC135 with a 1999 model year Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) EC135 in July. This brings added important safety features to our operations. The new aircraft has a full color radar system for monitoring current weather conditions as well as adding auto-pilot capabilities.
Additionally, we added live satellite tracking to the helicopter so DHART Comm may follow our progress on a direct satellite link to one of our three PCs in the Communications Center. This system updates aircraft position reports on a moving map display every fifteen seconds and increases safety.
2001 also shepherded in the addition of DHART Ground -Mobil Intensive Care Unit to the DHART transportation system. DHART Ground provides interfacility (hospital to hospital) critical care transportation services to surrounding hospitals in the region. This has proved to be a very important addition to our program.
2003 thus far has brought many changes at DHART. Due to construction at DHMC, a new and improved hangar was built in the North parking lot just below the Emergency Department across from the power plant. We moved in on February 17. The hangar allows all of our operations to be centrally located. It houses our larger communications center, Pilots and EMTs quarters, a crew room which has a work station for each crew member on duty, bays for each ambulance, including room for DHART 1 and a back up helicopter, DHART 2.
A month later on March 17, DHART 10 was put into service. DHART 10 is a highly customized Lifeline Ambulance on a Freightliner chasis. DHART 11, our other ground unit, was placed into service also as a backup to DHART 10. Both of our ground ambulances are capable of transporting two stretchers or two isolettes. All of our air and ground vehicles sport the same paint scheme as DHART 1.
The DHART Program has received outstanding support from the citizens of both Vermont and New Hampshire, as well as Upstate New York and Maine Public Safety Agencies, hospitals and EMS colleagues. We look forward to continuing our service to the people of Northern New England.
