MedAire Is Everywhere

In a small, darkened room filled with computer screens and telephone switchboards, Dr. Robert Baron listens intently as a 33-year-old man's medical symptoms are described. The man, who had briefly passed out, is in severe pain from his kidney area and is getting oxygen. The doctor sits across the hall from the emergency room at the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix, Ariz., but his patient is a little farther away: on an airplane 30,000 ft. over the Middle East. Yet within minutes, Baron has diagnosed a kidney stone, suggested preliminary treatment and arranged for medical personnel to meet the plane on arrival.

What's extraordinary about the scene is just how routine it has become for MedAire, the world's largest provider of onboard emergency medical assistance for ships and airlines. Founded in 1986 by former nurse Joan Sullivan Garrett, MedAire has grown from a tiny one-woman shop into a $17 million-in-sales company that is now listed on the Australian Stock Exchange after buying a company in Perth that operates Western-style medical clinics in Asia. MedAire, which is based in Tempe, Ariz., made the acquisition in an effort to grab a bigger slice of the estimated $1 billion medical-assistance market for travelers, with Singapore-based International SOS gobbling up some 40% of the industry's revenues.

MedAire's Garrett is also a force in the industry: it was largely her lobbying not to mention MedAire's extensive in-flight emergency-care data that persuaded the Federal Aviation Administration in 2001 to require upgraded medical kits and defibrillators to be installed on virtually all U.S. airliners by last April. MedAire is one of the largest suppliers of those products. Last year in the U.S., the company handled 9,818 in-flight medical emergencies, nearly 5% of which were serious enough to divert the plane. About 50 people die on planes each year.

Through its medical-assistance arm MedLink, MedAire counts 74 airlines as clients, including British Airways, Emirates and Continental Airlines, as well as operators of 1,800 corporate aircraft and 1,700 ships and yachts. The company, which also offers worldwide security consulting, fielded 23,202 calls last year for everything from remote medical assistance to emergency evacuations from Third World countries.

According to MedLink, which is a 24hour operation, the most common onboard ailments are fainting, stomach upsets and respiratory problems. Some of the doctors' most important work, though, is building a crew's confidence. "Dealing with a patient at a distance isn't usually the problem," says Baron. "It's convincing the crew the passenger who isn't doing well isn't actually going to die at 30,000 ft."

Business is booming, in part because passenger traffic is up and airlines have realized that minimizing diversions is worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars they each pay MedAire a year. But a more fundamental shift has happened to the jet set: it has got older and sicker. And as flying has become almost as common as commuting, unwell passengers who might have thought twice about traveling before now haul their sorry selves onto the plane. Not only can that lead to inconveniences, but in this era of diseases like SARS, it can also endanger other passengers. And that really gets CEO Garrett irritated. "Travelers have to understand they have responsibilities too," she says. "Airlines can't be expected to be able to handle the range of illness and conditions that people are flying with." Nonetheless, passengers can take some comfort that if no one answers the request "Is there a doctor on board?," there is probably one just a telephone call away.