Geo-data to add life-saving minutes for STARS pilots

A made-in-Saskatchewan data-mapping system will help STARS air ambulance crews find and treat patients more quickly.

The donated system was built by Information Services Corporation.

It was an idea first pitched by J.P. Farago, who’s a product manager with the data and land registry company.

“Eighteen years ago, STARS took the worst day of my life, and transformed it into a pretty amazing feeling that my dad’s life was saved,” Farago said.

He and his family were on a trip in Fernie, B.C., when his father needed immediate emergency care and had to be taken to a remote, rural hospital.

A STARS team then airlifted the elder Farago to a larger hospital in Calgary for treatment.

Since then, Farago said he has always had a for passion ambulatory care and services, especially STARS.

That passion eventually led to Wednesday’s announcement.

The geo-data and mapping system is built into the location and dispatch centre used at the STARS hangar and operations centre in Regina.

It maps out the entire province, allowing pilots and chopper crew members to pinpoint exactly where a patient or an emergency scene is.

Prior to using the system, a helicopter would be directed to the nearest landmark, like a grid road or a point of interest, and then would have to search out the emergency scene from the sky.

“Sometimes we’re actually looking for lights. You know if it’s nighttime, we’re looking for ambulance or police lights or vehicles driving,” STARS operations director Cindy Seidel said.

The new system will be particularly helpful for crews getting to emergency scenes in valleys, ravines or remote northern areas with heavy tree cover, she explained.

Seidel said the new system will mean crews have more time to prepare for scenes before they arrive and for flying patients back to hospital.