HONOLULU — The Hawaiʻi State Department of Health (DOH) has issued Notices of Award for the Essential Rural Medical Air Transport (ERMAT) Pilot Program to Pūlama Ka Heke, a Moloka‘i-based nonprofit healthcare hui, and to a partnership between Pūlama Ka Heke and Lāna‘i Kinā‘ole, a home healthcare agency, for the island of Lāna‘i.

The ERMAT program will support transportation to receive scheduled healthcare services not available on Moloka‘i and Lāna‘i. This program does not include air ambulance, in which an individual needs to receive medical care during transport.

Residents of both Moloka‘i and Lāna‘i often need to travel off their home island to receive essential healthcare services yet may frequently experience delays, cancellations and groundings — leaving residents stranded on other islands or missing critical medical appointments.

In response, the Legislature appropriated $2 million to DOH in 2024 to establish the ERMAT Pilot Program. To shape the program, DOH conducted more than 45 listening sessions and two town halls with healthcare administrators, providers and community members to determine priorities, identify patient needs and explore ways to increase provider visits to both islands.

The ERMAT Pilot Program aims to develop sustainable models for interisland medical air transport that address the unique healthcare access challenges faced by rural island communities.

Separately, the DOH continues to work to engage potential air ambulance providers to increase statewide capacity for time-sensitive emergency aeromedical transportation.

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