Air Ambulance Pooling

What is pooling? 

Pooling is when two or more patients share the same aircraft. This could be a more severe accident, such as a car crash, where several patients need to be transported from position A to B. It can also be two separate cases that do not have the exact same evacuation routing, e.g., [Patient 1] needs to go from location A to B, while [Patient 2] needs to go from C to D. Even if the route isn't the exactt same, it might be similar and there can be a possibility of combining these two cases to the same flight. This is the kind of pooling we're referring to in this article.

What are the benefits of pooling? 

Pooling multiple patients allows for substantial cost savings, as you only need to book a single aircraft instead of two.

Using the Pooling map to identify pooling opportunities

The pooling map can be found under Trips→Buying.

Combining two existing cases

In this example, we can see that we have one trip Palma de Mallorca → Gothenburg, Sweden, and a second trip from Nice, France → Gothenburg, Sweden. As we can see from the map, the trips are very similar to each other, and there's a possibility of combining them into one trip instead of two.

The next step would be to go to Search → Air Ambulance and search for a Multi-leg trip (a flight with multiple stops). Combining the trips together, we would fly Palma → Nice → Gothenburg.

In the search result page, select a few providers just as you would normally do. Fill out the Patient Request Form for Patient 1 (Palma →  Gothenburg). Then click Add New Patient to create an additional Patient Request Form for Patient 2 (Nice → Gothenburg). Once everything is completed, send the request.

Combining a new case with existing cases

When receiving a new mission, it is good practice to check the pooling map to see if the new case can be combined with an existing case. Let's say we get a mission for a patient in Venice, Italy, who needs to fly to London, UK. Before we start sending requests to the air ambulance providers, we should go to Trips → Buying to check the pooling map for pooling opportunities.

Looking at our existing cases on the pooling map, we can spot a pooling opportunity with the trip between Salzburg, Austria and Brussels, Belgium:

We could potentially go from Venice→Salzburg→Brussels→London

Now we go back to Search → Air Ambulance to search for a multi-leg trip for Venice→Salzburg→Brussels→London.

In the search result page, select a few providers just as you would normally do. Fill out the Patient Request Form for Patient 1 (Venice →  London). Then click Add New Patient to create an additional Patient Request Form for Patient 2  Salzburg → Belgium). Once everything is completed, send the request.