Advanced Life Support Group: Safe Transfer and Retrieval: The Practical Approach. Edited by Driscoll P, Macartney I, Mackway-Jones K, Oakley P. London: BMJ Books, 2002. 137pp.

Report

Safe Transfer and Retrieval provides a comprehensive review of the organisational and management strategy of the transportation of critically ill or injured patients. This book is quite original because it discusses the interhospital transfer risk management – and the number of interhospital transfers continues to rise. The book has different objectives: to understand why critically ill patients are transferred between hospitals, to understand the technical problems that may adversely affect patient care, to provide an overview of the principles of the safe transfer or retrieval of critically ill patients, and to describe the systematic Assessment, Control, Communication, Evaluation, Preparation and Packaging, Transportation approach for managing such patients. The organisational and management strategy are carefully developed, and the practical problems that may be encountered during preparation, packaging and transportation of patients are described. This book provides a very systematic and practical approach of this particular aspect of critically ill patients with different appropriate checklists.

This book is in paperback format, written by 23 contributors from across the UK. It consists of 12 chapters covering the organisational and management strategy of the transportation of critically ill or injured patients. All the chapters are carefully reviewed to achieve a concise and comprehensive contents section. The book contains many useful tables and figures that support the text. More specifically, the book is divided into five parts. The first section introduces the subject by discussing the principle of the safe transfer and retrieval approach. The second section deals with the management of the transfer or retrieval according to the principles. The third section describes the practical procedures necessary, while section four provides an overview of the clinical care required during the assessment and stabilisation phases of the transfer. The appendices in the final section consider the legal and safety aspects of transfers, as well as the specific differences in helicopter transfers.

Finally, this book has been developed to try to overcome the difficulties faced by healthcare professionals in organising and carrying out the transportation of critically ill patients. It provides a relatively concise and practical review of the organisational and management strategy of the transportation of critically ill or injured patients. This book is a valuable guide to interhospital transfer risk management.