TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - Airmen of the 60th Inpatient Squadron provide care to patients who stay in the hospital.
Hospital care has been a mission since the base’s first buildings were constructed to provide medical coverage during World War II. Decades later, medical services greatly expanded. In 2007, the Inpatient Squadron was officially formed and became the largest inpatient squadron of eight in the Air Force Medical Service.
Today, the squadron consists of military and civilian personnel who care for more than 8,000 patients a year within its 116-bed facility. The patient population includes active-duty members, retirees, veterans, and beneficiaries who require diverse medical specialties such as critical care, general surgery, cardiothoracic surgery, vascular surgery, nephrology, neurology, neurosurgery, pulmonology, gastroenterology, cardiology, psychiatry and labor and delivery.
The squadron consists of six flights: Critical Care Flight, Surgical Inpatient Flight, Medical Inpatient Flight, Mental Health Unit, Maternal Child Flight and En-Route Patient Staging Facility flight. It also oversees the nursing supervision function.
The Critical Care Flight has 27 beds manned by 100 personnel along with three of only 12 Air Force acute care nurse practitioners providing multidisciplinary care to the most critically ill. The flight has capabilities to provide continuous remote monitoring of the heart for up to 30 patients. Since its inauguration in 2009, the flight has boasted the title as the only open-heart surgical unit in the Air Force.
The Surgical Inpatient Flight consists of 51 personnel manning 30-beds and providing nursing care to 17 surgical sub-specialty services for young adult to geriatric populations. Additionally, the staff cares for telemetry and cardiology patients.
The Medical Inpatient Flight staffs 55 personnel in its 30-bed capacity with an average of 3,300 patients admitted annually. The flight provides acute, comprehensive and individualized high-quality nursing care for adult and pediatric populations. The unit opened a new joint initiative-funded five-bed expansion in July 2015 and staffs the beds with combined Veteran Affairs and Department of Defense nursing staff.
The Joint Inpatient Mental Health Unit is a 12-bed unit which is a secure voluntary and involuntary unit operated by 29 personnel. It provides care for 400 admissions annually and is one of only two inpatient psychiatric units in the AFMS.
The Maternal Child Flight provides comprehensive inpatient obstetrical services for child-bearing women and their newborns with more than 400 deliveries annually. The labor and delivery eight-bed unit is a specialty care unit providing routine service for low-risk patients. A brand new $3.3 million renovation was completed in July 2015 with a state-of-the-art labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum model of care.
The squadron proudly supports Aeromedical Evacuation missions and is only one of three AE staging facilities within the United States. ERPSF provides support and continuity of medical care for patient movement averaging more than three missions a week with 95 missions in the past year.
The strength of the squadron is found in the diverse, energetic professionals who are a part of it. Along with uniform-wearing Airmen and their families, the civil service, contractor and Veteran’s Affairs each adds an important component.
The 60th IPTS maintains a rigorous training platform in order to fulfill readiness requirements. Training includes temporary deployments at top level-one trauma facilities and joint training with sister services around the nation. Members of the squadron have extended its capabilities globally to perform expeditionary medical missions for both combat support and humanitarian aid. Deployments have ranged from the 2004 Indonesian Tsunami, 2010 Haiti Earthquake and 2005 Hurricane Rita, providing critical care support coverage with the notable Critical Care Air Transport Team. The extensive capabilities of the squadron have impacted the military and local community with a 24/7 operations tempo and boasted by our squadron motto “the best never rest.”