University of Utah health care system's AirMed program will receive an honor its director likens to "winning the Super Bowl" for flight teams.

In September, some of the staff of the air-rescue program will travel to Phoenix to receive the Program of the Year Award from the Association of Air Medical Service at the annual Air Medical Transport Conference. The award, which is an international honor, last year went to air-rescue crews that transported and saved premature babies endangered by Hurricane Katrina.

The program recognizes an air medical program that "has demonstrated a superior level of patient care, management prowess, quality leadership through visionary and innovative approaches, customer service, safety consciousness, marketing ingenuity, community service and/or commitment to the medical transport community as a whole," according to Blair Beggan, communications and marketing director for the AAMS.

AirMed is thrilled about the award, but Matthews said some honors are even sweeter: "When you have a family member say you really made a difference, or 'My son's alive because of you,' that's the best. But for peer-generated and peer reviewed, this is kind of the pinnacle, I believe. And we're very proud."

AirMed was the eighth air-rescue program started in the nation and began operations in the 1970s. It transports about 3,000 patients a year, most of them in the Intermountain West. It also takes patients to a liver transplant center in Nebraska sometimes and may venture as far as the Mississippi River on rarer occasions to help someone, said Matthews, who is also chief flight nurse for the program.

AirMed has two fixed-wing planes, one based at the Salt Lake International Airport and the other in Rock Springs, Wyo., in cooperation with Sweetwater Community Hospital because it does so many transports from that area. The planes are Pilatus PC-12s, single-engine turboprops that are increasingly popular in the air-ambulance industry because they are fast, efficient and have a huge door for moving patients in and out.

Better known to the public are the distinctive helicopters, with their black tails, red diagonal stripe and white nose. AirMed has four of those, one based at the U., another in Park City and one each in Utah County and Weber County. The helicopters each operate in about a 160-mile radius, so from those four points they can head in any direction quickly to serve patients throughout the area, Matthews said.