Leonardo, among the top ten companies worldwide in Aerospace, Defense and Security and one of the leading players in the helicopter field, and Olmedo, a leading European company for the transformation and fitting of vehicles for medical use, have signed a collaboration agreement aimed at the development for the global market of technologies and equipment for rescue missions both on rotary wing and on rubber. The goal of the agreement is to improve the timing and effectiveness of emergency medical interventions carried out jointly through the use of helicopter rescue and ambulances, as a single seamless environment.
The agreement between Leonardo and Olmedo provides for a collaboration plan that will give priority to the creation of an R&D structure composed of a joint "research team" for the development and prototyping of new components and universal solutions, i.e. designed for the contemporary and indistinct use both on helicopter and ambulance, as well as platforms for data exchange that allow the real-time interface of the patient's vital parameters at any time of the rescue mission: from the intervention site, to the hospital, passing through the transfer .
The project brings together, on the one hand, Leonardo's solid skills in the development of air ambulances (EMS - Emergency Medical Services) and helicopters for search and rescue missions in land and sea (SAR - Search and Rescue), and, on the other hand, those of the medical division "Ambulance Division" of the Olmedo Group, considered industry leaders since 1951 for the range and exclusivity of its achievements. A partnership agreement whose foundations were laid during the international meeting on helicopter rescue " REMOTE ", held in December 2018 at the Leonardo Helicopter Division plant in Vergiate, and which now allows Olmedo to be able to work on the creation, within its own group, of a new division: a" Fly Division ", completely dedicated to design of increasingly efficient products and technologies for air ambulances. This is a front in which Leonardo has a fleet of more than almost 700 rescue helicopters operating all over the world.
Olmedo's automotive experience and Leonardo's helicopter experience come together to inaugurate a new era of health emergency, guaranteeing, as confirmed by the history of both companies, that path of constant improvement of products and technologies in favor of of the community.
The agreement is also illustrated at the Montichiari Emergency Show (4-5-6 October 2019), simultaneously with the presentation of a Leonardo AW169 helicopter mockup with
a special set-up for helicopter rescue tasks as a first example of integrated capacity proposed by the partners.
