Survey Reveals Encouraging and Troubling Expectations and Desired
Outcomes for 2008 AMTC (Air Medical Transport Conference)

Boardman, OH, October 12, 2008—Nearly 92 percent of the respondents in a recent Expectations & Outcomes Survey conducted by ThinkThroughTools believe that gathering information to share on Safety and AMRM (Air Medical Resource Management) practices, standards, tools, technology, and training are an especially high priority for the upcoming 2008 Air Medical Transport Conference (AMTC).

Survey Highlights

33.7 percent of the respondents are Air Medical Program Managers, Directors or Base Managers/Supervisors. 17.9 percent are Flight Nurses. In all, 22 Professional Categories were included.

"We are grateful to the dedicated professionals who participated and highly value the time they devoted," said Rich Obertots, ThinkThroughTools' CEO. "It's encouraging to see so many who are focused on enhancing their safety and AMRM daily which validates our commitment to our 365 Safety AMRM™ on-demand software."

What Obertots finds troubling about the findings is that:

• 92.8 percent indicated that their organization does not provide their customers and the communities they serve with a consolidated presentation (and/or content-specific presentations) of what was learned at AMTC.

"In a time when many are scrutinizing the efficacy of Air Medical Transport and public perception is in peril—intensive community outreach and engagement with all four categories of customers is essential," Obertots said. "Presenting state-of-the-art information culled at AMTC to these stakeholders – especially about efforts to improve Safety and AMRM daily—must be a high priority."

Other striking findings were:

• 71.4 percent said that their employer does not clarify objectives and outcomes to be achieved at AMTC in advance.
• 88.4 percent said their employer does not have a formal system in place to evaluate and measure whether or not attendee objectives and outcomes are achieved.

"We all appreciate the education, networking and social value of AMTC," said Obertots. "However, investments being made by organizations are substantial to send staff. It seems it would make sense for each entity to have systems in place to clarify information gathering expectations and objectives with clear aggregation and dissemination strategies in advance that are linked to evaluation and measured outcomes. How many are taking what was learned at AMTC, organizing it, and implementing it with all four categories of customers effectively weeks and months after participants return?"

One survey respondent stated in the comments section: "It would be a wonderful change if management actually asked/requested deserving co-workers to attend AMTC with the understanding that information would be disseminated back to my co-workers. If it happens, I will be greatly surprised."

Obertots added, "Our survey was anonymous and confidential, therefore we cannot directly reach respondents. However, we need to learn more from participants who indicated they do have pre-AMTC systems in place to clarify expectations and objectives, and then are using a wide array of channels (including Web 2.0) to disseminate the information and measure outcomes."

It's Not Too Late

ThinkThroughTools can provide guidelines, templates, and on-demand software in advance for those seeking to attain higher return on investment for their participation at 2008 AMTC, as well as for those who desire to implement high intensity post-AMTC community outreach and customer engagement.

Leaders and innovators who desire to sense the real-time pulse of what an important group of Air Medical Transport professionals believe about AMTC are encouraged to read the candid and insightful survey comments. To see the results of the Expectations & Outcomes Survey, please visit www.ThinkThroughTools.com. 

ThinkThroughTools will launch a post-2008 AMTC survey to investigate how organizations prepared for, and then implemented and disseminated information gathered.

About ThinkThroughTools: ThinkThroughTools is a professional services firm that provides on-demand Safety, AMRM and Outreach management software for leading Air Medical Transport providers. For more information, visit www.ThinkThroughTools.com.