Gundersen Health System's Medlink Helicopter is now officially stationed at the Decorah Airport

Gundersen Health System is now stationing a MedLink AIR helicopter at the Decorah Municipal Airport.

Gundersen has decided to add two helicopters to its fleet, one stationed in Decorah and one in Sparta, Wisconsin, in order to reduce its response time for medical transports.

"We looked at our whole coverage zone," program director of Gundersen MedLInk AIR Stephanie Hill said. "The goal was to set up strategic locations for our crews to operate from and reduce our response time."

The addition of two helicopters to the Gundersen fleet also gives the clinic greater availability.

"We completed about 500 flights out of 1,000 calls," Hill said. "A lot of the reasons some of those calls weren't completed is that we were already on a call. Or we could be down for maintenance with the helicopter in La Crosse.

The MedLink pilots and medical crews will start their day in La Crosse but travel to their Decorah station daily.

According to MedLink officials, Decorah was chosen because of its hub location and relevance.

"We have a lot of air transports from the Winneshiek Medical Center," Hill said. "It made sense to put the helicopter there for that reason but also because we fly down to places like West Union."

According to Hill, Gundersen Health System is happy to partner with the Decorah Airport on this project.